


Prova Di Vita

by PumpkinDoodles



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Creepy Brock Rumlow, F/M, Pre-HYDRA Reveal, Soulmarks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-08-26 16:33:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16685182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PumpkinDoodles/pseuds/PumpkinDoodles
Summary: "First, I’m going dig out the bullets, princess. Then we’ll send your friends prova di vita. The proof of life."Darcy Lewis has always considered her bullet-themed soulmark a joke. It can't possibly be serious. Until she's snatched off a sidewalk near Culver and discovers that HYDRA is very much alive and well in 2014--and her soulmate is one of them.





	1. Proof of Life

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing! Someone asked if I was ever gonna do soul marks and, well, that got me thinking....

_A Proof of Life is a document that contains confidential information that can be used to confirm whether a person is still alive in case of kidnapping, abduction or detention. It can also be used to detail how that person would like their family members to be informed and/or if they have any special requirements, should something happen to them._

_-Rory Peck Trust (RPT), an independent organization dedicated to the support of freelance camera operators and journalists worldwide_

 

***

Darcy was walking down the sidewalk near the Culver campus when it happened. The van parked a few blocks from the coffee shop was idling, she’d noticed. But that was no big deal. Vans idled all the time. Her brain was preoccupied with what she needed to do before Jane’s big talk tonight: check the slideshow, figure out she and Jane’s return flight to NYC, check on the reservations for next month’s conference in Berlin, buy a mother’s day gift for Jane’s mother. Mrs. Foster was a doll, Steve would say; she always thanked Darcy in funny emails and joked about Jane’s absent-mindedness and Darcy always pointed out that Jane had _paid_ for the nice Balinese yoga trip, after all. Darcy had only picked it out and booked things.

 

What else was there, Darcy wondered? She had a nagging feeling there was something she’d left behind. She had both coffees. She had her flash drives. She had her rental car keys. She had good music playing on her smartphone. What was wrong? She stepped over the shadow of the van door just as someone grabbed her from behind. Reflexively, she threw her coffees in the air. The white paper cups sailed in the Virginia sunshine and landed on the grey sidewalk, lids popping open. Caramel latte oozed out as Darcy’s mouth and nose were covered with a sedative-drenched cloth and she was dragged into the van, legs limp and voice silent.

 

It happened so quickly, no one noticed. A pair of passing college students looked at the two lattes and the cardboard tray as they walked by, a mere minute later. “Man,” the blonde boy said to his friend, “littering is so shitty.”

“Who throws down full coffees?” his friend said, perplexed. They gathered the coffees and threw them in the nearby trash can. The first student wiped his hand on his t-shirt. It was sticky with caramel and whipped cream.

“Some asshole,” he replied.

 

In an auditorium on the Culver campus, Jane Foster was chatting with the Dean of Arts and Sciences, Dean Kleinholtz. “I’m just waiting for my lab manager and general life organizer,” she said jokingly. “Let me call her.” She found her phone in her purse and dialed. “Darce, where are you? This is Jane. I need my macchiato fix, boo-boo.”

“Did you get her?” Dean Kleinholtz asked a few minutes later.

“Her phone went straight to voicemail,” Jane said. She felt uneasy. She pushed away the feeling; ever since New Mexico, Jane Foster often had disturbing thoughts about misfortune befalling her, Thor, Darcy, or Erik. It was never particularly extraordinary disaster.

No, Jane feared regular horrors: car accidents on icy roads, sudden, unpreventable heart attacks, a fall from a great height. A recurring anxious fear involved Darcy being shot in a convenience store robbery, since Darcy always wanted to stop for snacks. When Jane vocalized her fears outside a gas station on I-40, Darcy made her listen to Brené Brown’s TED talk and insisted that Jane was suffering from a socially-conditioned fear of vulnerability. “How is that vulnerability?” Jane had asked sharply.

“You’re vulnerable because you love us, doofus,” Darcy told her cheerfully. “Snickers?” She wiggled the candy bar.

“I don’t feel vulnerable,” Jane said.

“No?” Darcy said.

“Give me the damn Snickers,” Jane said.

“Ah haha, you admit it!” Darcy said. “I knew you loved me.”

“I do, Platonic Soulmate,” Jane said quietly. “I worry.”

“I’m fairly sure my soulmate isn’t gonna shoot me at this Citgo, Jane,” Darcy said. “Despite the fact that people are always getting shot here in movies and stuff.”

“How can you be sure?” Jane asked.

“What if my soulmate is a nice sarcastic doctor, huh? Your mom would love that,” Darcy said cheerfully. “Like that Dr. Strange?”

“He’s an asshat,” Jane said, tearing open the candy with vicious intent. They’d met at scientific research conferences. She hated Stephen Strange.

“Besides, what if it’s all a big cosmic joke and I’m, you know, appearing in a play? Or, I dunno, _General Hospital_? It would be cool to be fake-shot by Sonny Corinthos and have a soap hottie be your soulmate--” she mused.

“Darce, no,” Jane had said, shaking her head and biting the Snickers. “Nothing about your soulmark is cool, okay? Nothing.”

“I hope it does turn out to be a joke,” Darcy said, “I’m sick of rocking granny panties so people can’t see it.”

 

Scrawled across the skin below Darcy’s belly button in a masculine-looking hand was a strange, disturbing set of phrases. They had haunted Jane since Darcy had showed it to her when they’d gotten drunk in New Mexico:   _First, I’m going dig out the bullets, princess. Then we’ll send your friends prova di vita. The proof of life._

 

_***_

 

Darcy woke in a cell. There were people bickering. “That is not Dr. Jane Foster, Ward. How could you be so careless?” a woman’s voice said. She heard a mumbling male reply.

“That’s all you have to say? For God’s sake, move her to the nonessential section. We can use her in the serum trials,” she said.

 

Darcy didn’t want to be in the serum trials. She pretended to stumble in front of the hapless Ward on the way to another part of the complex. When he leaned to grab her, she kicked him in the balls and ran. “Escapee!” Ward screamed. “Escapee!”

 

She rounded a corner and was faced with an armed guard in a dark uniform. She had turned to run when the guard fired. It sounded oddly like a nail gun. _Pop-pop-pop-pop—_

Then she felt the searing pain. Was this death?

 

They held Darcy for what she guessed was several days after her attempted escape, although it could have been longer. She was in agony. The plastic bullets that had been fired by the panicked guard remained embedded in her shoulder and back. She feared they were growing infected: first, the pain had been blinding, then she had felt feverish and like her entire body was throbbing with pain in time to her heartbeat, now she felt waves of chills that made her teeth clack together. She knew red streaks were a telltale sign of infection, but had no mirror to check for them. Darcy shivered on the cot and repeated a mantra: _You can live through this.You can live through this. You can live through this. You can live through this. You can live through this.You can live through this. you can live through this you can live through this you can live through. live through. live throughlivethroughbreathebreathedyingdyingdiepaindiepain._

 

She had passed out when someone shook her roughly. She woke up screaming. “Get up, get up, Miss Lewis,” one of her captors said. It was a woman of forty-five or so with a competently bland, almost official-looking face. She could be in the JC Penney’s catalog or in the advertisements for your insurance company. Her camouflage uniform said Hale on the chest pocket. Darcy swore incoherently as she battled pain, surprise, and disorientation. “Calm down,” Hale said.

“Fuckshitshitfuck,” Darcy hissed, her teeth gritted. The other woman grabbed her by her bullet-free arm and pulled her to her feet.

“Come along, this will be over soon,” Hale said crisply, pushing Darcy ahead of her. They moved down a hallway. Darcy’s socked feet were cold against the linoleum. She was shaking and her legs were uncooperative. She had figured out this was some kind of HYDRA base sometime after her escape. The guards chanting “Hail, HYDRA!” during her feverish moments had been a major clue. She’d thought HYDRA had been defeated by Captain America--it was one of the last bits they covered before Watergate in high school US history, after all--but some of them must’ve hung on. Probably in postwar Argentina, she thought. Weird movements hung on like rats, really. Ideas were hard to defeat. Darcy had also taken a seminar for her political science degree about cult movements at Culver. It didn’t seem so funny to laugh about the dumb octopus logo now.

 

Hale pointed her to a room on the left and pushed the door open. Darcy hesitated as the door swung inward. It looked like a simple exam room. “Lay on your stomach, Miss Lewis. I’m afraid we’re short-staffed. That accounts for the error.”

“The error?” Darcy said hollowly. Her voice was hoarse and dry from moaning in pain. She looked around. It looked like any other GP’s exam room, only there was fridge, too. It had a glass door, but she was almost afraid to look in. She shuddered, thinking it might contain freakish serums or tissue samples. They were going to experiment on her. Hale seized her elbow and hefted her onto the vinyl-topped exam table. It had one of those paper liners that crumpled and rustled. Thankfully, Darcy was wearing a bloodstained set of garments--a t-shirt, scrub pants--not a patient gown.

“That will do, also,” she said. Darcy had curled up with her back to the door. Free from Hale’s gaze, Darcy began to cry slow tears. It was the searing pain of movement that made her eyes burn.

“When we determined you weren’t Jane Foster, we failed to establish who you actually were. I wouldn’t have allowed them to shoot you with those non-lethal experimental bullets, had I known you were a valuable resource,” Hale told her. “Darcy Lewis, here among us.” She sounded pleased. “Which is ironic, considering your soulmark, isn’t it? Fate, Miss Lewis, is a very powerful thing. I am probably the only person in our entire organization who has read your file and seen your handwriting recently enough that I recognized it on him yesterday. And, of course, I recognized his handwriting on your body as well. Interesting place for a soulmark.”

“Fuckoffanddie,” Darcy said through chattering teeth. Hale chuckled.

“Your soulmate is one of us. I trust you will be, too. Eventually.“

“I won’t fall for your trick,” Darcy told her, shaking. “You tipped this person off.”

“Oh, no,” Hale said. “I would never say the words. It would jeopardize the bond. He merely knows you are, as they say, the One.”

 

There was a polite tap at the door. Darcy heard Hale open the door. “Hail, HYDRA,” she said crisply.

“Hail, HYDRA,” a sardonic male voice said back.

“You know what you’re to do?” she said. “She needs the plastic casings removed.”

“I have a general idea,” he said dryly. “Tools?”

“In the drawer,” Hale said.

“Thanks,” he said. It sounded dismissive. The door clicked shut. Darcy heard boots squeak across the floor, but didn’t look. She would not give this man one iota of her attention. For the soulmate bond to form, she needed to speak; ergo, she wouldn’t talk. The difficult thing would be not screaming if he hurt her. He opened a few drawers, whistling. Would his soulmark be rendered in tortured screams she wondered? Was that possible?

 

She felt his hands first. Warm, calloused. He pushed her hair aside, then he cut the t-shirt away from her back. Then he spoke: “First, I’m going dig out the bullets, princess. Then we’ll send your friends _prova di vita_. The proof of life,” he said.

 

Darcy didn’t reply. She was quiet throughout the agonizing removal of the plastic bullets. It took forever. Finally, he appeared to be done. He dabbed at her wounds with something cool and gel-like. Then she heard him return to the cabinet, retrieve something, cluck his tongue, and fiddle around. “This tissue repair wand doesn’t have a charge,” he said quietly. “We’ll have to wait.”

Darcy focused on the wall in front of her. It was painted an ostensibly soothing dusty violet. There was a small dent in the sheetrock, approximately the size of a human thumb at waist level. Someone had probably kicked the wall accidentally or--more likely--run into it with a corner of a cabinet or the exam table. The baseboards were painted a glossy grey. The paint was thick. Darcy could see brush marks and one embedded beige brush hair. Someone had painted those baseboards with a cheap paint brush and the hairs on the brush had shed. A few inches away, there was a black scuff mark on the floor. A ladies’ heel mark. Darcy closed her eyes. She was too tense to actually fall asleep--she could hear his even breathing and was hyper-aware of him in the room--but she could rest. She shifted enough to rustle the paper.

 

“No words for me?” he said, after a seemingly-endless silence. “Not even one, Darcy?” She still hadn’t looked at him. _Hell no,_ she thought, _fuck you, HYDRA asshole._ There was a beep. “Here’s our charge,” he said, sounding eager. He returned to her bare back and she instinctively flinched and moved towards the side of exam table closer to the wall. “Be still,” he said softly. “These things are great--they heal everything--but I need to be able to get to your wounds,” he said. He chuckled and she squeezed her eyes shut to keep from automatically glancing at him. He was so close to her. The wand hummed mechanically as he passed it over her back. Mentally, Darcy imagined it as the moving light part of a copier. It was copying her tissue, just like she’d copied pages out of her art history textbook to make flashcards of terminology. She could still remember some of the words, so she listed them in her head: fauvism, chiaroscuro, impasto, tenebrism, Baroque, Cubism, triptych, Man Ray, _The Birth of Venus_...  

 

“Sit up,” he said. “I’m going to give you something to ease your bruising, too.” He put his hands on her shoulders and eased her up into a sitting position. “It shouldn’t hurt to lie on your back now, but people do still get bruises. This will help.” Sitting with her face to the wall, Darcy realized that he was probably getting a glimpse of sideboob from the way he’d cut apart her t-shirt down the back. She decided that was preferable to facing him. “Here,” he said, handing her a small cup. He put a tanned, tattooed arm around the edge of her body, but she still didn’t look. “It’s, uh, pineapple juice,” he said. “Good for bruises.” She smelled it. It did smell like pineapple juice. She’d known that about pineapple juice, actually. Jane tended to bump into things. _Jane_ , she thought. She sort of fell apart on the inside. Then she got mad. Instead of weeping, she pitched the tiny cup across the room and he made a surprised noise. “All right,” he said. “Keep your bruises. I’m getting you a change of clothes. Clean that up.”

 

She stared at the wall, hot with rage, as the door clicked shut. She heard him lock her in. She wasn’t cleaning up a goddamned thing.

 

***

 

They called SHIELD about Darcy’s kidnapping, once it became clear that she was lost. Thor had appealed to Heimdall first, of course, but Heimdall had been fired by his father. “Your father _fired_ Heimdall?” Natasha Romanoff said, tilting her head to one side. Jane had called Fury when Thor had returned from Asgard. Natasha had met them at Jane and Darcy’s hotel in Virginia.

“Something is awry,” Thor said bitterly, holding  a furiously grief-stricken Jane. “I am certain it is a trick of my brother’s and he is impersonating our father, but I have no time for his games. I told him to locate Heimdall or Darcy and I left. I will find her myself.”

“How?” Jane said. “I thought Heimdall…”

“We’ve got teams, Jane,” Natasha said reassuringly. “She is SHIELD’s first priority. I’m going to pick up Steve and get a STRIKE team together. Is there any more information you can give me?”

“Yes,” Jane said. “We have documents.” She turned to her suitcases and began to cry. “She--she organized my things. I can’t remember which suitcase it’s in.”

“Let me help,” Natasha offered.

“No, no,” Jane said, pressing her palm against her eyelids. She took a deep shaky breathe. “Where would she put you?” she asked out loud. “Here,” Jane thought, trying the carry on. “She’d put them in the unchecked luggage.” She dug around in the blue bag--it had a print of cartoon London landmarks, she noted dully--and retrieved a yellow folder. She opened it and retrieved a few stapled pages. “We had a kidnapping plan, actually. It was a joke. She made me watch that movie about the Getty kid and swear that I’d make Tony pay a ransom or sell Thor’s Asgard gold and not cheap out on her.” Jane’s voice was shaky. “We made a code, so if someone had her, I could ask for it and know it wasn’t a hoax. This is it,” she told Natasha, handing her the sheet of paper. “It wasn’t serious. It was a joke.”

“I can have SHIELD use this as well,” Natasha said calmingly.

 

On the sheet, there was a series of words and phrases:

_Hot milk cake._

_Vanilla._

_I used to be Snow White, but I drifted._

 

Natasha tilted her head slightly. “What?” Jane said.

“I know these words,” Natasha said. “Would you recognize Darcy’s handwriting?”

“Of course,” Jane said. “Why?”

“This is someone’s soulmark,” Natasha explained. “Someone on STRIKE Alpha.”

“I don’t understand, how could this be a soulmark?” Jane said.

“I hope it means that STRIKE Alpha will find her unharmed,” Natasha said. “He is on vacation right now, but I will get him here. This is good news, Jane. We can check his mark to verify--” Natasha had turned to her phone when Jane sank down on the bed, turning pale.

“Jane?” Thor said. “What is wrong, Jane?” Natasha looked up in surprise.

“This is how it happens,” Jane said numbly. “I always thought it would be a robbery. Darcy’s been shot. Or she will be. Her soulmark is about digging out the bullets.”


	2. Nothing's Gonna Hurt You, Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time she saw his face....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing! Thanks for your comments and kudos!

He returned a few minutes later with clothes. “I think they should fit,” he said quietly, setting them next to her on the exam table. Darcy looked down at the neatly folded pair of black leggings and a burgundy t-shirt on the table. At the top of the pile, there was a pair of cotton underwear, black socks, and a sports bra. For a moment, his hand--tan with a thin veil of dark hair on the knuckles--rested on the clothes. There was a silver watch on his wrist. A muscular forearm. The hand withdrew. “You left me the mess, huh?” he said. She heard the creak of the paper towel roll on the counter and his voice moving as he bent to wipe up the spilled pineapple juice. “This is the first and last time I do this,” he told her. “From here on out, you make a mess, either you clean it up or you live in it. Are we clear?” he asked.

She didn’t reply.

“Stuff went everywhere,” he mused out loud. “Isn’t it funny how the tiniest bit of liquid goes all over the place? You’re not going to talk, huh?“ _Seems like you talk enough for both of us,_ Darcy thought. She was aware of him moving around the exam table, farther from the door. Now was her only moment. She threw herself down off the high table and bolted towards the exit. She’d gotten the door open and taken a step out when a hand seized the back of her scrub pants and a second arm wrapped around her body. “No,” he said firmly, his voice in her ear. “No more half-assed escape attempts.” He lifted her off her feet--she kicked but was too weak to connect with his body--and plopped her into the chair against the wall opposite the exam table. The squeeze of his arm had left her a little breathless from the pressure against her diaphragm. She coughed and gagged. He went to the cabinet, then returned. “You got a lot of fight in you,” he said, his hands on either side of her. Darcy looked up at him for the first time. She was startled.

 

The man staring down at her had dark hair and eyes. He looked to be about forty. His thick, shiny hair was clipped short on the sides, long on top. Any other time, she would have called him incredibly handsome, so perfect and masculine were his features: Defined jawline, strong chin. A five o’clock shadow over high cheekbones. Beautiful eyes. Those eyes were unreadable and deep-set. They bored into her. “I can respect that,” he said seriously. “But you’ll need to respect me first. You can start by saying the words. My words.”

 

Had she not been cotton-mouthed, Darcy would have have spat on him. She glared at him instead. _I hope you die,_ she thought, _I don’t care if I have to go, too. I’m never saying the words. Those are mine. Mine to give._ She knew that never saying them might make them both ill, but it was worth it. Totally. She hoped her hate was visible in her eyes. He smirked. “You’re not going to say them?” he asked. She shook her head vehemently, then felt a sharp pop of heat, followed by more pain. She was still stiff from laying in her cell and her neck must’ve been tight, she realized. She wanted to swear, but what if _fuck, that hurts_ were his words? “You’re in pain,” he said. “I could give you something to help. You want something for pain?” he asked.

 

She couldn’t shake her head again--she was too afraid--so she rolled her eyes instead.

 

“All right, princess,” he said. He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. She was surprised. So surprised that she didn’t realize he’d stuck the needle in her arm until she looked down at the pinprick of the needle. “It’s a nice little sedative and antibiotic combination I got from the cabinet,” he told her. “We’ve got a commute home.” Darcy looked back up in alarm.  “I know it’s soon, but I think living together is a good idea. I just got called into work and I don’t want to leave my soulmate here. Doesn’t seem very romantic to me--” Darcy glared and he looked at her with a smirk-- “and it’s time to change, princess. You’ve got about five minutes until you’re knocked out, so you can put those clothes on or I can? Your choice. You want to put on your own panties in the next four minutes?” he asked sardonically.

 

Darcy pointed a shaking finger towards the door and he grinned widely before he stepped out. She heard the door click and stood up. She already felt woozy and sleepy. _Change the pants first,_ she thought desperately. She took the clothes and then slid down her bloodstained scrub pants and underwear. She fumbled, half-nude, for the other underwear and pants. _Don’t come back here, don’t come back here._ She pulled up the pants and underwear. Then she she threw off her cut open t-shirt and reached for the sports bra. Getting it on was painful. Still, she managed to pull it over her boobs and then get the shirt on before she fell asleep in the chair, head lolling to one side.

 

***

“Do you need any help?” Grant Ward said to Rumlow. The STRIKE agent had retrieved Darcy’s personals--purse, clothes, phone, jewelry--from where they had been filed when HYDRA thought she was Jane Foster and the items might be useful to keep. Brock was carrying Darcy’s winter boots, too. She’d need them in the cold.  

“No,” he told Ward.

“You know she kicks, right?” Ward said.

“She didn’t get my balls, Ward,” he told the other man. “I can grab a wounded, petite woman without incurring injury.” He smirked. Grant Ward was desperate to be promoted to one of the STRIKE units.

“Are you questioning my competency?” Ward said.

“No,” Rumlow said.

“No?” Ward said. “Why are they letting you take her off base, anyway?”

“Because she’s my project,” Rumlow told him.

“Why did they assign her to you?” Ward asked.

“That’s need to know,” Rumlow said.

“Are you doubting my clearance levels?” Ward asked.

“No.” Rumlow paused in front of Darcy’s door. “I’m questioning your masculinity,” he said dryly. Once Ward had stomped off--he was a pissbaby, Rumlow thought--he opened the door slowly. Darcy was sitting in the chair, her head to one side. Rumlow shut the door behind him and leaned against it, watching her. He’d tucked her boots under his arm. She snored gently. She’d changed all her clothes but the socks. One was half off her foot. He walked over and knelt down to change her socks, setting her boots down. He pulled off the dirty white socks, then replaced them. “These have absolutely no fucking support, but they’re very you, princess,” he said to her, scrutinizing her boots. They had little flowers on them. She slept through him putting them on her feet.

 

Darcy woke up in the backseat of a car. She was buckled in and covered with a blanket. When she reached up to wipe the drool off her face, she realized her hands were zip-tied at the wrists. Darcy blinked, pushing up her glasses. Brock was driving. He looked back at her in the rearview mirror. “Sleeping Beauty is awake,” he said dryly. “You have interesting taste in music, princess.” That was when she realized he had her phone plugged into auxiliary outlet. He was playing her music? It was oddly violating. There was a series of moans from the speaker next to her head.  She frowned as her brain focused on the sounds. Shirley Manson was singing about crawling on her hands and knees. He was playing _that_ song?

 

“Would you die for your soulmate?” Brock asked her. She almost--almost--said something sarcastic about how she’d have died for her soulmate when she was ten and stupidly naive, i.e., when she’d first heard that song in _Romeo + Juliet_ , but snapped her jaw shut quickly when she realized those could be his words. It was dark outside the car, she realized. It must be late. There were only eighteen wheelers on the highway ahead of them. Of course, he would move her at night; he wasn’t stupid, she realized. She was actually afraid he might be competent. That would be a serious problem if she was going to escape ASAP. The playlist switched to the next track. “This is a nice song,” he said casually. “I’ve listened to it once already and this might be the best one.”

 

It was Cigarettes After Sex’s “Nothing’s Going to Hurt You, Baby.” She repressed a shiver. “I’m sorry about you being shot, I am, but I don’t think we could have done anything to change that, not with your words and mine. So, we’re in this situation. It’s shitty, but I think we should make the best of it. You know what’s interesting?” he said. She closed her eyes, but he seemed to take that as an inducement to talk. “We’ve almost met at least two or three times. SHIELD diverted me from Puente Antiguo at the last minute--”

 

 _He was SHIELD,_ Darcy realized in horror. _Of course, HYDRA had moles in SHIELD, close to Steve_ . _Still, the implications were almost enough to make her hyperventilate. Jane and Thor were in danger, weren’t they?_

 

“--and I just missed you and Foster in London by two days. Fury had me doing clean-up in a different part of the city. We could have met before. But then where would I have kept you, given the situation we’ve been put in by our soul marks?” he said. He shook his head. “Hale would have wanted to keep you on base. Everything happens for a reason.” She sat up a fraction. He looked in the rearview mirror. “My panic room was just finished last month. Don’t worry about space. You’ll have plenty of room while we get everything sorted out at SHIELD.”

 

Darcy started to silently beat the windows of the car with her zip-tied fists as they passed an eighteen wheeler. “He can’t hear you, princess. Not unless you talk,” he said. “Did Hale tell you my name?” He accelerated, easily passing the truck. They were soon the only vehicle again. Darcy really wanted to scream in frustration. Instead, she hit the glass until the sides of her palms were all red and tender. She thought they might bruise. He made a _tsk-tsk_ sound. “No real strength or conditioning, huh?” he said. “I can remedy that later. Boxing lessons could be a good date activity.”

 

She grew woozy with exhaustion and passed out again as Duran Duran’s ”Come Undone” began to play from the speakers. He hummed along with it, changing lanes smoothly.

 

***

 

When Darcy woke up again, he was carrying her up a staircase. She flailed and kicked, but her feet were zip-tied together, too. She only succeeded in making her knee twinge. _Fucking zip ties._ She’d hated using them to pack Jane’s equipment and seal things shut in-transit and she really hated them now. “Relax,” he told her. “This is my place. Nobody but us here.”

 _Fuck you,_ her brain screamed. She so desperately wanted to scream obscenities at him, but had no idea what his words were. Anything, any phrase could bond them. She could ask for a damned Band-aid and be stuck with _him_ . Better to take the soulmate sickness--the illness that was said to afflict soulmate pairs that were forcibly split somehow or never bonded--and hope the Buddhists were right about reincarnation if she died. She was really beginning to regret joking with Jane about her soulmark. Dr. Strange was looking good. He might have that terrible goatee and wear bling from QVC’s _Dynasty_ collection, but he had no known Nazi associates.

 

Rumlow was carrying her across a landing at the top of the stairs when he smirked. “You’ll like this,” he told her. “It’s fun.” He took her into what looked like a dumbass man cave: huge tv, bar, black leather sofa, pool table. No books, of course. He probably couldn’t actually read. Maybe he read sports memoirs. _My Story_ by Derek Jeter or some bullshit. He carried her past the pool table, over to where the pool cues were mounted into a built-case made of stained wood. He pressed something hidden by the wood framing, tapped several times, and suddenly it swung inwards. “Fun, right?” he said, stepping over the bottom edge. “Watch your head, princess.” He moved her so she wouldn’t hit her head on the edge of the wall.

 

They were in a hallway or some sort of foyer. He pushed the pool-cue door shut behind him and it sealed shut with a strange _whoosh_ sound. Darcy realized this section of the house (was it a house? She hadn’t seen the outside and had no idea of the address or location) was on a whole separate A/C system. It was several degrees cooler and the air had a metallic edge to it. She turned her head to look around. There were two doors, each with a high-tech security panel. He walked over to one and put his palm in the panel. It beeped. He shifted her over his shoulder adroitly and she huffed out a pained wheeze. “Sorry,” he said. “Here’s the part you can’t see.” A second later, they were walking into another room. He moved her back into his arms. Darcy looked around, pausing to glare at him.

 

It was a strangely sterile room, windowless, and almost like a studio apartment. She could see a couch, a small kitchen, a built in table, and what looked like a bathroom and a laundry area off the room.  “Home Sweet Home until we learn to trust each other, princess,” he told her. Something about his tone set her off and she attempted to claw at his face and pull out his hair. He swatted her arms away and dumped her on the couch. Then he pinned her hands down and tapped her nose with his other index finger.  “Stop that,” he said, “not the hair, Lewis. Never the hair.” He grinned. “C’mon, talk to me,” he said. “Say my words.” She shook her head, blinking and trying not to cry. He brushed a tear away with a thumb and looked at her for a long time. “You’ve hurt yourself,” he said. She’d bitten her own lips in her effort to keep from making a sound while she tried to slap him. “I probably have chapstick around here,” he said, as she stared at him sullenly.

He started checking all the kitchen cabinets and she began to cry silently. “They must mean something to you? My words. I’ve always wondered what they meant, ever since they appeared. I know what one part is, but not the first part. This would be a lot easier if I could show them to you or something. Rules, huh?” She shook her head vehemently. “You don’t wanna see ‘em?” he asked. “You’re not curious?” She flipped him a double bird.

 

He laughed. “I’m going to gather up all of the sharp objects”--he looked around and picked up a notepad and pen to bring to her--”so you make a list of things you want and I’ll cut those zip ties off before I go.” He put the pen and pad in her hands. Darcy stared at it, wondering what the fuck was happening. It took him about ten minutes to gather all the sharp objects and carry them out. He left her lying on the couch. Eventually, he returned. “Here you go,” he said, setting down a paper plate with some toast. She’d eyed it skeptically. “You think I’d bring you here, move out my razors and my spare knives, and then poison your strawberry jam?” he asked. “You don’t want anything?” He looked at her blank notepad. She shook her head grimly. He smirked. “Stubborn,” he said. “There’s food in the pantry and the fridge. You won’t starve, but I’m happy to get you other things? No? The clothes are mine, but I’ll get you things as soon as I can. Eat this. I need to give you more antibiotics.” When she tried to fight, he shook his head. “Antibiotics and a sedative?”

When he was gone--she’d refused to write anything down, afraid there was a soulmark loophole--she rubbed her irritated wrists and looked around. She was alone, she was locked in, there were tiny surveillance cameras mounted in the corners of the room, and she had no idea what his name was. She ate the toast before she passed out.

 

***

 

Jane was pacing the conference room as they waited for Steve and the members of STRIKE Alpha to arrive. They’d done the first-round of searching for Darcy, to no avail. “Jane,” Thor said tenderly, “you must sit down. You have not rested.”

“She’s been gone for five days,” Jane said. “Five days. The longer she’s gone, the more likely it is…”

“She is alive, you must believe it. Natasha has spoken to that man, Rumlow,” Thor said. He put his hand to Jane’s face.

“I feel so powerless,” Jane whispered.

 

Several men in tactical gear stepped through the door. The final man had dark hair. He looked at Jane pacing on the other side of the table. “Jane Foster?” he said.

“You’re him?” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Can I have a sec?” He gestured for her to follow and Jane hurried after him. They moved down the hallway at the Triskelion, passing Steve.

“Rumlow,” Steve said in greeting. “Jane.” He stopped to hug her. “We’re gonna find her, okay?” Steve turned to Rumlow. “Right?” he said.

“Yeah,” he said. “We’ll be back in the meeting in a sec, Cap.”

“All right,” Steve said.

 

Rumlow led Jane to small room. “What is it?” Jane said. Her whole face was tense.

“I don’t usually show this to people, it’s...intimate,” he said quietly. He unzipped his jacket and shed it on the table, then began pulling his shirt up on one side. “It’s just here, Jane,” he said, folding down the waistband of his tactical pants. Below his left hip and the groove of his Adonis belt--oddly near Darcy’s corresponding mark, Jane thought--there was a line of looped handwriting that Jane recognized instantly: _Hot milk cake. Vanilla. I used to be Snow White, but I drifted._

“See?” he said. “Still dark, still defined. No fading,” he told her flatly. Jane threw her arms around him, weeping.

“She’s alive,” Jane said. “She’s alive.” His mark would be fading if she was hurt or dying, Jane realized.

“Yeah,” he said, looking over her shoulder. “She’s alive and she’s going to say those words to me soon. Okay?”

“Thank you,” Jane said. “Will you tell me if it--it changes?”

“I will,” he said. Jane let him go and then stared at the edge of the mark peeking over his waistband. “What?” he said.

“I’m just so relieved,” she said, starting to cry again. He reached for his coat and then looked at her seriously.

“Is there anything I can do?” he said.

“No, no,” Jane said. “I’ll pull myself together. She’d want me to be calm. We planned for this. Those are her proof of life words.”

“I’ve been wondering,” he said. “Since about 1988.”

“Yeah?” Jane said beaming through her tears.

“Why don’t you tell me about her?” he said, tilting his head down at the scientist.

“She’ll be so mad that I met you first,” Jane said, following him out of the room. “And I’m pretty sure she’s going to be thrilled with your abs.”

“Good,” he said, smiling slowly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon gif for this chapter: http://gph.is/2cKAgoL
> 
> Chapter title song: https://youtu.be/R2LQdh42neg


	3. Plans, Provisions, and Pop Tarts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You ever wonder about corporate politics within HYDRA?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing! Thanks for all your comments and kudos!

 

When Darcy woke up, she had no idea what time or day it was, only that she was alone in her strange safe room-slash-prison. First, she found the light switches, turning on various lights. Everything seemed to work like a normal apartment. Then she scoped out the kitchen. There was a coffee pot and coffee, but no half and half or sugar. She made a pot, anyway. She could drink it black, if need be. Coffee would help dissipate the sedative-fog in her brain. All the food seemed to be either survivalist food (MREs, protein bars) or uber-dudebro health food (a stash of frozen beef in the freezer, chicken breasts, frozen steam in bag vegetables), and even a small amount of fresh produce and eggs in the fridge, which surprised her. Why did he keep this place stocked like he’d need to hide  _ in his own home _ at the drop of a hat? 

There was coconut oil, nuts, and spices in the pantry, but no cereal, junk food, or flour. This was oddly reassuring: it was his food, so unlikely to be poisoned. Finally, she located one sweetener, a bottle of agave. Dolloping it into her coffee, she drank a big swig and looked around. What she needed was a weapon, she thought. All the dishes and cups were that melanine stuff or travel mugs. Cheap and unbreakable. He’d left her pots and pans and forks and spoons, but nothing sharper than a butter knife. The pans were light nonstick ones. Dammit. She would have given her bank account balance and more for a heavy cast-iron skillet. She looked up at the camera in the kitchen. Who was watching her? Doubtless, he was, but was anyone else? It made things challenging. Even if he had a camera app on his phone and checked in on her periodically, he couldn’t keep eyes on her all the time. But a team of people might. And they’d warn him if she was visibly making weapons. What could she do? It would have to be something fast--something she could grab and hit him with as he walked in the door, she thought--not something she had to make. What would Natasha do?

 

Natasha would tell her to do anything she could, Darcy realized. Nothing was off-limits. Natasha might say his words and then use his surprised reaction for the crucial seconds of violence it would give her. But Darcy was afraid that she couldn’t get the job done without a real weapon: a taser or a gun. If she said the words, she’d have to be certain she was capable of killing or incapacitating him to make a full escape. He was much more physically tough than she was, Darcy knew. So, that meant she had to be intelligent. She was looking through more of the cabinets when she realized that one of them hid an actual wine drawer. He’d left it partially stocked. Wine bottles, Darcy thought. Maybe he wasn’t that clever after all.

 

***

“Hey, Jane,” Brock Rumlow said, appearing in the doorway of her make-do SHIELD lab. She’d canceled everything to stay in DC while they searched for Darcy. Thor had gone out on a tip that morning; Tony had called to stay he had JARVIS running camera searches internationally and monitoring her spending, cell phone activity, everything.

“Hi, Brock. Any news?” Jane asked. She’d been sitting in her chair in a slight daze. Last night, she’d had a dream that she and Darcy had been separated in a forest that looked vaguely like Norway. Jane could hear Darcy calling in the moonlight, but couldn’t find her. She hadn’t been able to go back to sleep. Thor had held her while she alternated between crying and raging.

“Nothing yet,” he said. “But we’ll find her.”

“You sound more confident than I feel,” Jane said.

“Can I see that?” he asked gesturing to Jane’s lap. It was a video of Darcy on her phone. Darcy had posted it to her private social media account. 

“Sure,” Jane said, pressing play.

_ “Sup, this is Jane the Brain and me, the World’s Okayest Assistant. We’ve just landed in Hawaii and we’re about to do Science! in paradise. Look at the ocean! It’s so pretty and ocean-y and whatnot. I think this is the high point of Jane’s entire career. Gettin’ paid to go to Maui, baby!”  _

_ “Darce, don’t say that--” _

_ “What? Like it’s not true? Do you think we could find Oprah’s house? I’m buying all the Kona I can smuggle back to the mainland, if it’s cheaper here. Also, I think we need to play Jack Johnson, that feels very Hawaii. Or is that a cliché? Let’s ask Oprah and Gayle--” _

 

“So that’s what she sounds like,” Brock said, smiling enigmatically. “There’s no video in her file.”

“She makes the funniest voicemail outgoing messages,” Jane told him. “It’s one of her things.”

“Things?” he asked.

“She wears toboggan hats, she does my outgoing messages, she loves Pop Tarts and chocolate cereal and coffee and vanilla perfume and--shit,” Jane said, blinking. “You’d think you’d stop being able to cry at some point.” She rubbed her forehead.

“No,” he said quietly. “It doesn’t end.”

“What if she’s dead already?” Jane said.

“Nope,” he said. “Mark’s still there.”

“What if there is a glitch in the damn system?” Jane said. “What if that’s not reliable?” He shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Mine are reliable.”

“Are?” Jane said, slightly confused. Did he have two soulmates?

“This is my second soulmark,” he said.

“Oh,” Jane said. Talking about marks was a private, intensely personal thing. Jane had always kept hers quiet, mostly because the Asgardian runes had been unreadable until Thor taught them to her in the desert. People asked weird questions.

“I got my first one young. A girl I grew up with. We went to elementary school together. She died in 1987. It was terrorism. Her family was flying to Europe for a Christmas vacation and somebody put a bomb on the plane. The mark disappeared overnight. No trace,” he said. “I got Darcy’s a few months later.”

“Because she was just being born,” Jane said.

“Yeah and I still have it,” he said. Then he smiled. “The Mae West thing threw me for a damn loop for years,” he said.

“Why?” Jane said.

“I was thirteen. When people told me she was an old, dead movie star, I thought that might mean my new soulmate was an old lady,” he said. “Nobody my age knew Mae West. My grandparents knew who she was. Never thought I’d end up being the old half of the pair,” he said dryly. 

“You’re not that old,” Jane said.

“I’m a 107,” he joked. “What else does she like?” He listened intently as Jane named things in a rapid stream-of-consciousness list.

“Kraft mac n’ cheese,  _ Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries,  _ every kind of vintage music you could imagine, diet sodas--she thinks they taste better than regular soda--Trader Joe’s, white wine, stretchy pants, brownies, everyone’s dog, weird humanities seminars, food memoirs--”

“Food memoirs?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“When people write books about the food they grew up eating or whatever,” Jane said. “She likes thinking about food and learning about food, even if she doesn’t cook all the time.”

“Ah,” he said, “she like Anthony Bourdain?” 

“Probably,” Jane said. 

“I like him,” he said.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot. She read his Typhoid Mary book. She’ll read weird things about crime or history aloud to me sometimes. She likes history, especially things about the twenties and thirties. Jean Harlow movies. Kitschy things. Mai Tais. Scarves. Jane Austen movies, because that means she gets to yell, “just kiss already!” at the screen--” Brock laughed.

  
  


When he finally got up to leave, he looked at Jane. “Foster,” he said.

“Yes?” she said.

“I already lost one soulmate. I’m not losing my second one,” he said. His facial expression was serious and unsmiling. 

  
  


***

 

After she’d made herself food, Darcy discovered another door behind what she’d (correctly) assumed was the laundry alcove. Pushing the door open tentatively, she held her breath. What if it was some sort of torture chamber or experiment room? She let out a sigh of relief when she realized it was just a bedroom. As she poked around, it dawned on her that it was his bedroom. His supply of extra clothes--mostly black, some gym tees--were hanging in the closet; there were unopened bags of men’s socks and underwear in the dresser.  This bedroom had a second bathroom as well. Darcy decided she wanted to be clean and as alert as possible when he came back. A shower might help. She took some of his clothes out of the closet, so she could wash the ones she’d been wearing. Hers smelled of sweat and were wrinkled from being slept-in.

 

She undressed behind the shower curtain, tossed her clothes out, turned the shower on, shrieked a little when the cold water hit her skin. She had no choice but to use his terrible 2-in-1 man shampoo that smelled like freaking Old Spice and made her hair knotty. His new soap was scented in some heavy mannish smell, too. At least this stuff appeared unused. Talk about overcompensation, she thought. She put a towel on, again behind the curtain, dried off her body and the actually put on his t-shirt and a pair of gym shorts standing in the  still-damp shower. Darcy got out of the shower as covered up as she could manage. It was horribly enraging to think you were being constantly watched and could do nothing about it. If someone was watching, she needed to think of a plan. And she had no idea when he would be back. She needed a weapon and a way to get him back here for her to escape. Darcy felt anxious. She didn’t know about the doors between her and the rest of the house. Of course, if she injured him comprehensively enough, she could take his phone and call Jane. Yes, she thought, I’ll call Jane. Thor could be here faster than anyone on the other side of those cameras.

 

***

 

“What’s Rumlow’s little soulmate doing?” Ward asked the HYDRA technician monitoring the cameras on base. 

“Weirdly normal stuff,” the tech said. “They must have said their words already.”

“Why?” Ward asked.

“First she did laundry. Now she’s cooking him dinner in his clothes,” the tech said. “Look.” He turned his monitor screen to face Ward. The screen was split into squares for each camera. In the top left one, Darcy was standing in the kitchen, rinsing something in a strainer. The image was a little grainy, but he could see that she was wearing a t-shirt with a slogan for DC gym and a pair of boxing shorts.

“You got any shots of her putting those on?” Ward asked, snickering. 

“Nope,” the tech said. “She changed in the master bathroom. He got a dispensation for no cameras in there.”

“What?” Ward said. “How?”  The tech scrolled with his mouse, tapped some buttons, and pulled up a second screen with an e-report. “It says because…. _ I don’t want pencil-necked level 5 nerds gawking at my dick during a goddamned emergency?” _

“He put that on the form?” Ward said.

“Pierce okayed it. He’s one of Pierce’s protegees,” the tech said, as if that explained everything. 

“Yeah,” Ward said glumly. Ward was a Garrett protegee. Being a Pierce protegee meant you were farther up the HYDRA food chain, more eligible for promotions, and closer to all the really good secrets. It was like the difference between being a movie star and a television star, Ward thought enviously. He wanted to be a fucking movie star and he was stuck in the HYDRA equivalent of Sunday nights at 9pm.

“I’m going to call him,” the tech said. 

 

***

Brock Rumlow was in a DC-area Target when his phone rang. “Hello? Yeah,” he said coolly, his voice expressionless. “What is she making?” He listened for a moment. “Thank you.” He hung up. He was in the shampoo aisle. There were too many options. “Excuse me,” he said, stopping a middle aged woman, “my girlfriend is coming to stay with me for a few weeks and I wanted to surprise her with some things to keep at my place, since that whole 3 oz airplane rule is a such a pain. What do you think a woman would like?”

“How long is her hair and is it curly or straight?” the woman asked him.

“That matters?” he said.

“Oh, yeah,” she told him.

“Huh,” he said. “It’s wavy-ish?” he said after a pause. He pulled out his phone and showed the woman Darcy’s photo. He’d had Jane add him to her social media that afternoon.

“That’s curly, hon,” the woman said. “You’ll want shampoo and conditioner, maybe lotion, hair products, makeup--”

“Makeup?” he said, surprised. “They don’t let you carry-on your makeup?”

“No, they don’t, those assholes,” she said. “Not if it’s bigger than 3 ounces. They think we’ve got IEDs in the damn Cover Girl foundation bottles.” She snorted. He chuckled.

  
  


He set the shampoo and conditioner the helpful woman chose in his cart next to the Fruit Loops, the milk, and a container of Pop Tarts. Flicking through Darcy’s social media photos, he noted the clothes she usually wore and anything else of interest. Lots of coffee and other people’s puppies and photos of her and Thor and Jane trying cupcakes. 

 

***

Darcy had baited the trap, she thought. She’d taken the beef out of the freezer and decided to cook it in the wine, along with some vegetables: mushrooms, frozen broccoli, red onions, baby potatoes. Darcy hummed as she added seasonings. She wanted it to look like a normal attempt at a meal. It was freaking difficult to quarter onions and baby potatoes with a freaking butter knife, but she did it.  Once the dish was bubbling away on the stove, she rewarded herself with a big plastic cup of wine. Liquid courage, she thought. It might be stupid, but she wasn’t sure she could seriously injure or even kill someone with a broken bottle. It seemed more visceral than using a taser or a gun. With those, you just pulled a trigger from a distance. She’d have to really mean this. Really want to hurt and maim. That was unsettling. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever really wanted to hurt someone before. She poured a second cup of red wine and nursed it. That emptied out the bottle and she set it in the sink, ready to grab when she heard him at the door. If he showed up at all. If he didn’t show, she’d save the bottle and eat the food herself. That was one reason that she wanted it to taste good. She was 60%/40% sure that she might be the one eating it alone tonight, if she wasn’t fleeing the house covered in his damn blood. Her soulmate’s blood. How had she ended up with this man as a soulmate?

 

She was sitting on the counter in the kitchen, drinking that last partial glass, when she heard a noise. It was a muffled thump. The pool-cue door? She froze.  She had to wait. If she hid herself behind the door with the bottle, someone watching could alert him by phone, right?

 

So Darcy waited.

 

Waited.

 

Waited another beat.  

 

She heard the door beep and swing open with a hiss. “Princess, you cooked for me—?” he called out. “I’ve got things for you.” Peering around the corner, she realized he was half turning to lift grocery bags over the threshold. Her one chance. She grabbed the wine bottle by the neck and rushed towards him, half-determined, half-petrified.

 


	4. A Woman's Gotta Know Her Limitations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boyfriend feelings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing! Thanks for all your comments and kudos.

He was almost shutting the door when Darcy reached him. She had the wine bottle poised to swing and inches from him when he turned his head a fraction and then everything happened quickly. He seized her raised wrist in a bone crushing grip and spun her around, so that her back was to him and wrapped his other arm across her body, pinning her. “Drop the bottle slowly,” he said. She shook her head fiercely. Her wrist stung and she felt her grip loosening from the pain. Abruptly, he let go of her hand and pried the bottle away before she could hang onto it. She pushed back with her now-free arm, trying to elbow him, but she couldn’t get enough momentum. “Stop,” he said. “I will put you in a sleeper hold if you don’t fucking quit and that deprives your brain of blood and then function. You want that? And then I’ll zip-tie you and return your Pop-Tarts.” He sounded sardonic. She bit her lips to repress a string of obscenities and stood still. “Good,” he said. “A woman’s gotta know her limitations,” he said in her ear, chuckling. He let her go slightly.

 _Fuck you,_ she thought, _you wannabe Dirty Harry Nazi asshole shithead._

“Jane told me you made her watch _The Dead Pool_ the other week, that was a surprise,” he said casually. “I didn’t think that would be your thing.” Something about the idea that he was talking to Jane left her momentarily stunned, then furious. He was near Jane. It made her feel sick and angry and violated. He must’ve told Jane he was her soulmate, she thought, horrified. She was more viscerally disturbed at the idea that he was near an unsuspecting and totally vulnerable Jane than she was about her aching wrists or this odd prison. Jane had always told her that she had a weird complex about injury to other people: someone could snark at her all day long and she’d snark back at them without a care, but if they insulted Jane, she was much more offended. Darcy could feel her blood boiling now. When he moved away from her to put the wine bottle outside the door, she launched herself at him again, scratching and yanking and clawing. With more irritation than real effort, he batted her hands away and grabbed her wrists. She kicked at him. He flipped her easily onto her back and pinned her down on the floor. “Are you always so goddamn stubborn?” he asked dryly. She was out of breath from landing with a thud and aching slightly. “Stop,” he said. “Stop. You won’t win and I’ll just end up hurting you and having to drag you somewhere less cozy and domestic for medical treatment. You wanna crack your skull and go back to base?” he said in a quiet voice. “Answer me.”

She shook her head no. He chuckled, leaning his body weight fully against hers. It was unbearably intimate. “That’s what I thought. My mistake with the wine. I’ll take all the other bottles. The bottle idea wasn’t a bad plan, though,” he mused.  “You just lack the proper physical training to pull it off.”

 _What the fuck,_ Darcy thought. _Was he complimenting her on her attempted assault?_

“You had the surveillance guys convinced you’d gone all soft,” he said. He leaned his face down almost on top of hers, so that his mouth was near her ear. “But I knew, princess,” he whispered. “Do you want to see what I got you, huh?” He rubbed his nose a little against her temple. She knew she couldn’t hit him or kick him effectively, but she was still shaking and hot with adrenaline, so his touch set her off. She the instinctive thing she’d done as a kid in fights with her cousins: she bit him. Darcy sunk teeth into his neck, up high, near his jaw.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, yanking her mouth away by pulling her hair. “Were you not properly vaccinated at as a child?” He laughed at her mutinous expression. “It hurts to be quiet, doesn’t it? You’re probably aching to talk right now. All those bottled up words you want to say to me? Are you aching, princess?” he said. She refused to look at his eyes; instead, she focused on the imprint of her teeth in his neck. The neat darkening marks in a half circle. Maybe it would bruise? She wanted to hurt him. After a second, he made a noise and she looked back up at him. “We could make this much easier,” he said.  “Say my words.” He looked at her intently. “Say them.”

In response, she bit his shoulder. He actually laughed, the smug asshole. She dug her teeth in, expecting him to hit or slap her. Instead, he inhaled a little. “You like some weird things, but I can live with them,” he said, voice suggestive. She tried to hit at him again, but he merely pinned her hands down more firmly. She’d bit him on the neck a third time when he chuckled. “I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun when a girl cooked me dinner,” he told her. “Maybe I’ve been doing it wrong.”

 

***

“Are they fucking on the floor?” Ward said. Onscreen he could see what looked like Rumlow on top of someone. He’d circled back to the technicians’ control room on base after having dinner with Garrett. His mentor was deeply involved in a HYDRA project that he--Garrett--felt was lacking in funding and internal support. Garrett had spent most of the meal complaining that he felt under-acknowledged, a sentiment that Ward frequently shared. Why did it always feel as though he was being pushed to the margins in favor of tech geeks and people with no qualifications?

“I don’t think so,” the evening shift technician told him. “Well, not yet. She came at him with the bottle, he disarmed her, they started flailing around on the floor.”

“Should we send somebody?” Ward said, frowning.

“Nah,” the tech told him breezily. “I can see dinner on the stove, he’s just got her pinned, this is probably some sort of bizarre STRIKE martial arts foreplay. You should see the things I’ve seen.”

“Yeah?” Ward said curiously. The technician leaned in and lowered her voice to a whisper. She thought Grant Ward was cute.

“You do not want to know what von Strucker likes to do,” she said, shuddering.

“He dresses up as Hitler?” Ward said. Strucker and his monocle were fairly notorious. Rumlow was known to have snarked that he’d be less conspicuous if he “stopped wearing Adolf drag in the year of our Lord two-thousand fourteen.” Pierce’s protegées could get away with anything, Ward thought sourly. Even insulting other high-ranking members with seemingly no repercussions.

“Nope,” the tech said. “Blonde Eva Braun wig,” the tech said, smirking. “He makes his soulmate wear the mustache and the--uh, shall we say--appropriate appendages. I don’t know how Madison stands it. So creepy.”

“Madison?” Ward said. _Strucker’s soulmate was named Madison?_

“Oh my God, you haven’t heard that story? His soulmate is one of the West coast recruits. She grew up in Santa Barbara, has an MBA from Stanford, and worked for Fred Segal. Then she matches with him and has to move to _Sokovia_ and live in that drafty fortress? People gave her six months before she bailed, but that was five years ago. I guess soulmarks are as real as they say,” the tech said. “Oh, look, he’s carrying her to the couch. I bet they’re gonna--no, wait, he’s just getting her a blanket.” She was disappointed.

“How sweet,” Ward said archly.

“Yeah, he’s just unloading groceries now. Boring. Do you want to see my really fun cameras?” the tech whispered. She grinned at him.  


***

Darcy eventually stopped fighting his grip. She was tired of trying to break his hold on her; he was covered in bite marks, but seemed oddly energetic.  Apparently violence was really exhilarating to Nazis? He scooped her up effortlessly and deposited her on the couch. “You need ice for your wrists?” he asked, grinning. She shook her head. “Stubborn,” he said. He went over to the bags and retrieved a blanket. Darcy looked at him, stunned, as he draped it over her.

_He had marks from her teeth all over his neck and he was giving her a chenille blanket?_

He carried half the bags into the kitchen, then came back for the other half, disappearing into the bedroom. “I’ve got you clothes and shampoo and stuff,” he said casually. “Jane told me you like Pop-Tarts, but i didn’t know which ones, so I got you several. Dinner looks great. What is this, beef bourguignon?” Darcy half-sat up and stared at him. He was unpacking stuff in the kitchen. It was her half-assed version of the Julia Child recipe--difficult to do without a decent knife, white flour or carrots--but he was actually _smiling_ at her. It was deeply unnerving. “Tell me what you think of the clothes I got you?” he asked. He brought the bags to her. She was slightly terrified that it would be full of something creepy, like lingerie, but it turned out to be t-shirts, yoga pants, and cotton socks. Nothing sexual or strange. The most erotic thing in the bags was probably that he’d bought her some pedestrian underwear and sports bras. They weren’t even in sexy colors. She stared at everything and it dawned on her that he planned on her staying for awhile.

 _Oh God,_ she thought, _I have to get out of here._

He brought her ice in ziplock bags for her wrists. “Here,” he said, “I’ll bring you up some tech gel, too. You hungry?” he asked. She shook her head vehemently. “Okay, suit yourself,” he said. He sat down on the other end of the couch with a plate of food and she slid as far away as possible. “This is very good. You’re a good cook,” he told her after a few bites. “Jane told me you like food.” She glared at him at the mention of Jane and kicked at his hip. “Ow, mean, princess. Why won’t you be nice to me? I’m being nice to you. You should consider yourself lucky to have gotten me as a soulmate, really.” He gestured with his fork at the cameras. “Not everybody on the other side of that is as pleasant as I am.”

She glared at him, then realized something wasn’t right. The bite marks on his neck and shoulders were already fading. Her eyebrows shot up in alarm. “What?” he said. He followed her eyes down to the lowest bite, where his neck met his sternum. “Oh,” he said. “You looked so terrified just then. You want to know how I get my special powers?” He grinned. She rolled her eyes and pretended to ignore him on the other side of the couch.

His special powers apparently included eating a lot; he was on his third serving when she dozed off. She woke up disoriented and realized he’d fallen asleep on the couch, too. She looked at the two empty beer cans on the coffee table and listened to his even snoring. Here was her second chance. But she had to be quick. He might wake up if she had to go to the kitchen for another bottle. Darcy looked around. He was wearing combat boots with sturdy laces. Could she strangle him with his shoe laces? What the hell was that thing called on murder shows where you tied something like a stick to a rope to help you strangle someone? Would the pen he’d left her for the grocery list work? It was still sitting on the end table. No time like now to find out, she thought bitterly.

She was trying to cut off his air with all her strength and weight--leaning backwards away from him--when he woke up gagging and clawed at the shoelace. He tore his laces out of her hands. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he said, rubbing his neck. “You made a fucking garotte? How many homicidal tiny people do you have in there?” he asked, looking down at the shoelaces. He looked at her and she flinched back in fear. “Are these my shoelaces?” he asked. “You made a garotte out of my shoelaces while I was asleep?” He was probably going to kill her, but she nodded anyway.

 _Fuck you_ , she thought, _I did_.

He burst out laughing. “I really wondered why we matched when I saw your whole deal”--he pointed at her and gestured towards her body, making Darcy frown--”with the fucking cupcakes and the novelty pajamas, but I get it now. You’re a murder kitten,” he said. “My soulmate is a tiny murder kitten.”

Darcy glared at him. Bereft of words, she stuck her tongue out. “Use your words, princess,” he said. “Or my words. Unless you want to bite me again?” He seemed to find it all funny.

He left the safe room a little while later with the wine bottles, but returned almost immediately with a tube of something. “This will help your wrists,” he said. “Let me.” He rubbed some of it over the tenderest parts of her wrists and hands. She caught him looking at her oddly. She made a face. “Did you want me to bring you wine in plastic bottles?” he asked dryly.

  


***

He stayed the night in the safe room. He offered her the bed, but she shook her head and stayed on the couch.

 _Why was he lingering_ , she thought? _Did he think she would fuck him? Probably the food was a bad idea. It had given him boyfriend feelings. Still, you’d think attempted murder would be a turn off?_

When she woke up, she could hear the shower running. She got up and shuffled to the kitchen to look at the new groceries. Darcy didn’t want to eat the Pop Tarts he’d brought her, but several were limited edition: he bought Strawberry Milkshake, Unicorn, even those peanut butter ones with chocolate that tasted like Reese’s Cups that she’d loved a few years ago. She sighed. Wouldn’t it be sad if she died without having some? She would have some. And anyway, “Gone Nutty” Pop Tarts were freaking appropriate to the situation. He walked by the kitchen as she was toasting them. “There you are,” he said, “I assumed you’d be throwing the toaster in the shower with me about now.”

 _Shut up,_ she thought, without looking at him. Then: _That’s actually an idea. Damn. I should have done that._

“I see you thinking it,” he said, chuckling. “You missed your window.” She turned to face him for the first time. He was shirtless. There were a lot of muscles. She was startled. He grinned. “You think I’m pretty?” he asked. She rolled her eyes. “C’mon, princess, say my words,” he said. “I’ll teach you some actual self-defense.”  Somehow, he herded her against the kitchen counter. “C’mon,” he said, “how do you get out? What do you do?” Darcy pushed at him, but he was like a wall. He laughed and made a fail buzzer sound. “Inadequate,” he told her. Darcy got a little mad then, so she kinda slugged him in the face. It was a glancing blow, but he smiled encouragingly. “Good start. I’ll get you gloves.”

Darcy gaped at him. “Use your fist like this,” he said, positioning her hand. The Pop Tarts popped up in the toaster. “Look, there’s your edible food-like substance,” he teased.

He was unnaturally cheerful as he made himself scrambled eggs while she ate the Pop Tarts. “Here’s my idea,” he said casually. “When I’m in town, I stay up here with you, so we can get to know one another. It’s good for soulmates to spend time together. Eventually, you’re going to say my words and we’ll have at least established a rapport, I’ll know your likes and dislikes. You want to learn some self-defense? I’ll teach you. I think it’s a good idea. Once we’re bonded, I’ll move you onto to weapons training. Is there anything else you want? I’ve got a nice memo board”-- he nodded towards an unpacked Target bag on the floor--”so you can make me a list, princess. Leave me notes, that kind of thing?”

 _He is absolutely insane,_ she thought.

Still, she wondered if there were ways she could exploit his willingness to teach her self-defense. She nodded. “That sound good to you?” he said. She raised her fists at him and he laughed. “You gotta keep your chin down,” he told her.

 

First, he hung the memo board--those Velcro strips, no nails, she noted sadly--then he taught her how to get out of someone’s hold after breakfast. For the better part of an hour she tried to escape him, to no avail. Frustrated, she finally broke his hold. “Good,” he said. “Good, you’re improving.” She elbowed him in the stomach and he laughed, then grabbed her again from behind. “Stop being so damn petty, that’s writing checks your ass can’t cash, princess. You don’t really want to hurt me and that’s why you keep failing. You’re a flight person and not a fight person, aren’t you?” All sweaty and tired, Darcy shrugged. “Yeah, you are,” he said. He walked over to where she’d hung her original shirt to dry (it was dry flat) on the elliptical machine in the corner of the safe room and raised an eyebrow at her. “This is not for clothes,” he said teasingly. “I would try to get you down to an 7 or 8--minute mile, if we were doing this seriously, but clearly, you’re ill-prepared to kill somebody.” She flipped him the bird.

The next several days passed in much the same way: he gave her self-defense lessons, she flipped him the bird when he teased her about her elliptical mile time. She started using the freaking thing, if only because it was an outlet for her agitation that looked normal. Otherwise, she paced the apartment and she found that less de-stressing because she frequently got so distracted by worrying about Jane that she ran into furniture. On an elliptical, she could think and move and there was no furniture. A few days later, she got brave and discovered she could use the memo board without soulmate repercussions. First, she tried to troll him with the weirdest quotes she could imagine. She’d put something about the abyss on there when he walked by, scratched his head, and looked at her, eating a strawberry Pop-Tart. “Nietzsche, huh? Strucker loves that guy,” he said. “I don’t really get it.”

Next, she tried to convince him she was going crazy in the apartment by writing _Yellow Wallpaper_ repeatedly all over the board. He looked at it. “You want new wallpaper?” he asked. She plopped her face down onto one of the couch pillows and struggled not to groan. Who didn’t know Charlotte Perkins Gilman? She’d read that freshman year of freaking high school. “It’s a no on the wallpaper?” he said, grinning. He erased the board. She glared at him. “I always thought the husband was fooling around with the sister or whatever. Wasn’t it the sister?” he asked. She threw the pillow at him. "Terrible aim," he said.

 

Finally, she discovered that it was really fun to write limited edition things she wanted on the memo board and send him running all over town for unobtainable Pumpkin Spice Starbucks coffee in January or really expensive things, like PJ Salvage pajamas. She’d even requested an iPod. It was oddly domestic. He hadn’t even told her his name, but he seemed to think they were in a bizarre sort of relationship, like she was whatshername, that good actress, who’d played a mute woman in _The Piano._ Of course, if she didn’t talk and they never bonded, his name was irrelevant. She wasn’t going to say it. Ever. She was afraid she’d slip up and say his words during a boxing lesson, though. Especially if they were _Oh fuck you, fuckface asshole, I’m hitting you for real this time._  

He came back from one of those runs one afternoon, immediately after a mission, and sank onto the couch. “No Pumpkin Spice, so I got you caramel coffee instead. God, I’m tired. No boxing today,” he said. “There’s an iPod in there with some music already on it, so you can have music when you work out. I made you an iTunes on my laptop.” He fell asleep while she played with her iPod on the other end of the couch. She was contemplating whether or not she was strong enough to do him real injury yet--her mile time was eight and a half minutes--when she realized that he’d scratched his belly in his sleep and his shirt had ridden up. There was bit of script visible over his waistband. Her handwriting. She leaned over him to read it. It was technically cheating to read your words on your soulmate before you said them. People said it weakened the bond. She did it anyway. The bottom edge of the words was obscured by his shorts, but she recognized them instantly. Her proof of life words and phrases that she and Jane had decided on as a joke: they were Darcy’s favorite cake, favorite perfume, and favorite Mae West quote.

_Hot milk cake._

_Vanilla._

_I used to be Snow White, but I drifted._  

She sagged in relief. There was no way she’d accidentally say any of that in a moment of stress. She was going to be okay.  “Hey,” he said sleepily, “what are you doing? Are you checking me out in my sleep, princess?” She covered for her prying by staying silent and grabbed the blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over him. “Thanks,” he said. “C’mere.” He held his arm out and she settled on his shoulder nervously. She was oddly giddy with relief. She knew the words! It was like an enormous stress had been lifted from her system. A small giggle of delight escaped her and he stirred. “What?” he said. “What’s funny?” She covered her hand with her mouth. “Do you think I’m funny?” he groused. “I know half that stuff you ask for is discontinued, dammit. I called three places before I found those fucking pajamas today.”

 

***

The HYDRA staff meetings still perplexed Jack Rollins. There was so much backbiting and interpersonal drama that he had difficulty re-summarizing it all for Nick Fury and Maria Hill. Hill had started to tease him that he was beginning to look feral, but it was bloody difficult to keep his natural accent (Australian) and personality (easy going) under wraps while acting as a triple agent within a secret organization of barmy Nazis.

“I’m just suggesting that Rumlow is stretching our resources—” John Garrett was saying. “Since his soulmate needs constant electronic monitoring. My idea for this project—” Garrett was always having a whinge about something. Jack repressed a sigh.

“Your project has been vetoed,” Hale said crisply. “We don’t have it on the agenda, either.”

“Let Agent Garrett make his case,” Alexander Pierce said. He ran the meetings with a deceptively mild aura that reminded Jack of a professor. Sometimes, it was unclear if he was paying attention; other times, he would scold them, but always with the manner of a father suggesting that he wasn’t angry just _disappointed._ Rumlow, Jack had cottoned early, was the old man’s favorite because he was most able to take things impersonally. Jack could never quite suss out where Rumlow stood on anything, except that he liked to troll people like Garrett.

Rumlow had once expressed to Jack that the organization’s problem was that it leaned too heavily on snotty HYDRA prep grads--”who think they’re tough ‘cause they shot Old Yeller”--without real-life experience or insecure types like Garrett who were were always going off. But that was a rare speech for Brock.

“I am merely suggesting that Project October could be very useful,” Garrett said.

“What is Project October?” Jack asked Brock quietly.

“Zombie armies,” Rumlow said. “Fucking dipstick idea of his.”

“B—fuck,” Jack murmured. He’d almost had an Australian slip.

“I’ll consider it,” Pierce said. “Put together a prospectus, Agent Garrett.”

“With all due respect, sir, I did one last year—what are you doing, Rumlow?” Rumlow had made a gesture.

“This is the world’s tiniest violin, playing “My Heart Bleeds for You,” John,” Rumlow said dryly. “Change the date on last year’s report and stop wasting our time with off agenda items.”

“Says the guy who breezed in from New York, didn’t graduate from the academy—“ Garrett said.

“Gentlemen,” Hale protested. She was a HYDRA Prep alum, but these arguments gave her migraines.

“He can’t even get one imprisoned woman to break,” Garrett said. “It’s been two weeks and I heard she was on your damn elliptical this morning, like it’s Club Med in there”--Ward was passing information to Garrett from the tech he was seeing--”so, what’s your problem? Attachment?”

Pierce sighed heavily. He didn’t like attachment. Or these disagreements.

“If I may suggest, there have been studies proving that soul bonds will take under pressure,” Hale said obliquely. “Hart and Renfrew did a methodology review for us,” she said, reaching for an article. “123 soulmates who met in prisons, 37 that bonded during sexual assault—although there is some overlap with prison group A—and 47 who met during assaults of a non-sexual nature.”

“Exactly,” Garrett said, raising his arms in a _so?_ gesture.

“Exactly what?” Rumlow said.

“Why haven’t you beaten the resistance out, Rambo? You’re so tough, but you can’t handle the little woman?” Garrett asked.

“Can you make a case, Commander?” Pierce asked.

“Yes, sir, but it’s clearance level above this room,” Rumlow said.

“Convenient,” Garrett said.

“Just as an exercise,” Rumlow said mildly, “what does your follow-up study say, Hale?”

“Follow up study?” Hale said.

“I read those when Hart and Renfrew gave that seminar last year,” Rumlow said. “I don’t have it in front of me, because Darcy Lewis isn’t on the agenda for today, but I seem to remember that those bonds were highly unstable and that many of traumatized bond partners became violent or suicidal.”

“Uh, yes,” Hale admitted. She flicked through her paperwork. “There was some indication, even in the initial study--”

“What difference does it make?” Garrett said.

“That’s above your clearance level,” Rumlow told him.

"Again, very convenient," Garrett said. Garrett was clearly fuming, Jack thought. Rumlow was expressionless.

 

***

“How do you make the case?” Pierce asked, after the others had filed out of the room for a brief break. They had Darcy’s social media platform visible on Pierce’s laptop.

“She is a valuable person to have with us if there are any follow up issues with Insight,” Rumlow said. “Any one of the Avengers and many of the other individuals on our list would go to her without suspicion. She is non-threatening, trusted, in addition to getting us closer to Jane Foster and her work. Her closeness to Foster could have long-term scientific value. Years of value.”

“Hmm,” Pierce said thoughtfully. “You believe they would go to her without suspicion?”

“Absolutely,” Rumlow said.

“You think you can get her to bond with you, if she hasn’t thus far?” Pierce said.

“Yes, it will take more time, but yes. I’m trying to build trust. I blame myself for not asking Hale for more information before I walked into that room. Had I know exactly how useful she could be, I would have staged a rescue, convinced her I was a safe person from SHIELD, we would have bonded already,” he said, sighing. “Failure to plan on my part, sir.”

“We cannot anticipate all eventualities, but we can control how we respond to them,” Pierce said mildly. “Take time, see if you can make progress.”

“Thank you, sir,” Rumlow said.

“I don’t really understand social media. But it occurs to me that someone like her might be a valuable public asset,” Pierce said. He was looking at an image of Darcy with Cap. They were eating Captain America donuts.

“Public asset?” Rumlow asked.

“We may need softening,” Pierce said. “When we arrive at Phase II and go public, our spouses and families become especially valuable. I’d been thinking of my daughter’s importance to my narrative…”

“Yeah,” Rumlow said. Pierce had come to HYDRA via SHIELD after she’d been in a hostage situation.

“A family humanizes, Commander,” Pierce said. “It makes it clear who we are doing this for. People have difficulty relating to abstract social commitments and the importance of order, but they understand soulmates.”

“Yes, sir,” Rumlow said.

“Hmm,” Pierce mused. “She and Foster have spent the last several years in the academic world. There is a lot that is commendable about that worldview, but it tends to imbue individuals with idealism. Perhaps she’s idealistic?”

“Yes, sir,” Rumlow said.

“In that case, she’s going to struggle with adapting to our new world, unless you can persuade her. That will take time.”

“I believe it will,” Rumlow said. “But I’m confident that time will make it easier for her to see my point of view.”

“You could speed up the bonding process,” Pierce suggested.

“What were you envisioning?” Rumlow asked.

“I am in agreement with you that a traumatic soul bond experience might negate her value. Also, we don’t need you to incur injury at such a crucial stage. What if you told her you were secretly still loyal to SHIELD?” Pierce suggested mildly. There was a long moment of silence.

“It might work,” Rumlow admitted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm italicizing Darcy's thoughts and spacing them like dialogue here, because otherwise she never talks and everything's just big blocky paragraphs.


	5. Leave the Gun, Take the Pop-Tarts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane is gonna be so mad at everybody

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing! Thanks for all your comments and kudos.

_Sometimes_ , Jack Rollins thought, _being in HYDRA was like being embedded in an unruly dog kennel. He’d seen footage of French hunting hounds that were fed raw meat in open concrete trenches en masse; the strongest got the biggest share. HYDRA was like that. Shifts in authority led to weird acts of sudden, previously stifled, violence. Attacks on the weakest members of a pack._ They were shuffling back into the second half of the meeting when it happened that afternoon. Jack had returned to his seat near Rumlow when Garrett walked around that side of the conference table, solely to shoulder check a still-standing Brock. He was discussing those trauma bond studies with Hale.

“John,” Rumlow said in a deceptively calm voice, “what are you doing?”

“Well, I assumed we could just push you around as much as we like. Ward tells me that you don’t lay a finger on Darcy Lewis,” Garrett said snidely. “We thought you were mellowing in your old age.”

 _Bloody hell,_ Jack thought, _should I duck_? Pierce was out of the room. Had Pierce been present, Jack knew, Garrett wouldn’t have dared. Garrett talked a big game, but he weren’t right and everybody knew it. It was why he never got promoted beyond a certain level. And in HYDRA, that was a high bar of crazy,

“I wouldn’t be so confident,” Rumlow said quietly, locking eyes with him.

 _He’s going to stab him with that knife he keeps in his boot_ , Jack thought distinctly. Hale had already backed up. She was used to territorial displays and had no time for them.

“Oh, yeah, well, I feel pretty confident. You know I feel kinda like I’m on seventh street--no, wait, what’s the expression, seventh heaven? That’s it, right? Jack?” Garrett said. Jack didn’t reply. He knew that Brock lived on seventh street. _Was it a weird threat?_

“That is the expression, seventh heaven,” Hale said, trying to shut down the awkwardness.

“I must’ve texted Ward the wrong one, then. He’s probably wandering down Seventh Street right now,” Garrett said.

 _Oh fuck,_ Jack thought, _is a threat. Definite threat. Ward is breaking into Rumlow’s house right now._ Jack had been tasked to find Brock’s safe house and locate Darcy by Fury and Hill without blowing his cover. So far, he’d been unsuccessful. It dawned on him with a sickening thud that the safe house was _inside_ Rumlow’s house. That was the only thing Garrett could threaten that would possibly be of any value to Rumlow. Jack knew he’d lost his first soulmate--he’d been told never to ask about it--and Rumlow might value keeping grips on Darcy more as a result. Jack had been treading very carefully.

“Sounds like typical Ward,” Rumlow said noncommittally. Jack was quietly pushing a button on his phone. It rang. That was what it was supposed to do. Jack had a plan, both for speaking with Hill and Fury and for surreptitiously assisting his HYDRA commander. Not that Rumlow had confided Darcy’s location, goddamnit.

“Have to take this,” he said, standing up. He did not make eye contact with anyone else. In the hallway, he met Pierce. “I’m sorry, sir, but an emergency call--”

“It’s quite all right, Agent Rollins,” Pierce said smoothly. “I was listening in. If you could go retrieve Agent Ward from the commander’s home without killing him, I’d like a word. I think perhaps we need to move that young man out of Agent Garrett’s sphere of influence.”

“Yes, sir,” Jack said.

“Influences are so difficult to manage in the young,” Pierce said. He patted Jack on the shoulder and Jack repressed a shudder. “If you do see her, try to make a good impression. We’re working against a poor initial one.”

“Yes, sir,” Jack said, his fears confirmed. She was in the house. Could he get to her in time?

He drove to Rumlow’s house as quickly as possible. It involved borrowing one of the fake DC Metro squad cars they used for assassinations and blaring the sirens. Easier to smuggle Ward out that way, too.

 

***

Inside the safe rooms, Darcy heard a sound. A weird beep. Another weird beep. It was coming from the cameras, she realized, after she confirmed it wasn’t a smoke alarm and managed her panic about being trapped in a fire. The little lights on them had all gone out. Did this mean she was being rescued? A spark of hope lit in her chest. She waited for the sounds of a rescue team. Steve’s shield. Thor and Mew-Mew. Nothing. Surely, they would send a whole team, right?

She heard the pool-cue door opening and the sound of solitary footsteps. _Oh_ , she thought, _he’s back_ . She meant her bizarre soulmate. _It must be a mistake._ Her hopes were dashed. Only he didn’t immediately open the safe room door. She heard him swear and realized—to her horror—that it wasn’t him. It was a different male voice. She grabbed one of the tiny chairs from the dining table. It was the only thing she could think of.  A second later, she heard the door panel beep. _He’s getting in_ , she thought. She had the chair raised to clobber him. Darcy swung as the door opened and she saw Grant Ward begin to lean in. The chair landed with a _crack._ He slumped backwards into the hallway and Darcy hit him a second time. Ward wasn’t here to rescue her. He had some sort of photostatic veil over his hand: her captor’s handprint, obviously. Next, she looked for his gun.

She was searching his pockets when a tall man stepped over the threshold. “Lov—Miss Lewis,” he said in an odd accent, “are you all right?”

“Who are you?” Darcy asked hoarsely.

“Jack Rollins,” he said. “I work with Brock.”

“Who is Brock?” Darcy said. He gaped at her.

***

 

“Bloody hell,” Jack muttered, once they’d locked Ward in the squad car in the garage. Afterwards—safely in the camera-free downstairs, he’d scanned the room with a device and they’d turned on the tv and whispered—Jack explained what Ward was doing there, who he was, and that his job was to get electronic files pertaining to secret HYDRA sleeper agents. “HYDRA is full of people madder than cut snakes. I’ve got to get you out, love.” He’d brought her water for her hoarse voice, but she talked when she was alone, so it wasn’t too bad.

“What happens to you?” Darcy asked. “Doesn’t that blow your cover?” She was thinking rapidly. Stupid thoughts, Jane would say.

He shook his head. “Can’t be helped,” he said.

“But you’ll miss the files,” she said. “Maybe die.”

“I have an escape plan,” he told her. “It might work.”

“Does he want me dead, my soulmate?” she asked.

“Brock? No. I cotton he wants to keep you, turn you into his chook.”

“Chook?” Darcy said.

“Wife,” Jack said, shaking his head. “I’m going to slip one day.”

“Oh,” Darcy said. “You don’t think he wants to hurt me?”

Jack shook his head. “He lost his first soulmate when he was young,” he said. “I think he wants this to work.”

“I guess that explains the boxing lessons,” she said.

“Boxing lessons?” Jack said.

“He’s been teaching me things. Can you use me?” she said. “To help SHIELD?”

“What?” Jack said, stunned.

“Don’t tell Jane, though,” Darcy said.

“That—that, you can’t,” he said.

“I can,” she said stubbornly. “I’ll stay, give him what he wants, give you time to get these assholes.”

“Darce—” he began, but then they heard squealing tires. Rumlow’s car in the drive.

“He’s back. Let me help, okay?” she said. “I don’t want you to die because of me or lose this chance. But never tell Jane, never. She’d kill us both.”

“Oh Christ,” Jack moaned bleakly.

 

The front door swung open with a bang. “Where is she—,” Brock said. He froze when he saw her standing there, lowered his gun, and stared for a long moment. She was just sitting at his kitchen island with Jack. Darcy looked at Jack.

“Give us a minute?” she said to the taller man. Rumlow visibly started at the sound of her voice.

“I’ll check on Ward,” Jack said, standing up.

Once Jack left, Darcy looked at him. She stayed silent. He took a step towards her. “I thought you were—” he began. A second later, he had his arms wrapped around, holding her head against his shoulder. “I thought you were dead,” he repeated. She could feel him shaking. His heart was beating fast. She made the decision to leverage his heightened emotional state to her advantage.

“Hot milk cake, vanilla, I used to be Snow White, but I drifted,” she said. “See? Proof I’m alive. My proof of life words.”

“I know,” he whispered, “those are my words. You don’t want to take them back?” He held her face with his hands and she had to repress a shiver of something. She nodded no. “Good,” he said. He kissed her gently on the forehead, then did that odd head hold again, rocking her a little as she pressed her cheek against his shoulder.

 _Weird,_ she thought, _you are weird, dude. Also, if I live, Jane is gonna kill me. I feel stupid now. Will he want sex? What if he wants sex? I did not think this through. Damn my weakness for ethical Australians. They’re too much like puppies. Labrador puppies. I just couldn’t let somebody die for me without making a Plan B._

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” he said quietly. They were interrupted by someone clearing his throat.

“Is everything all right?” Jack said in his odd, not-Australian voice. He was standing in the doorway.

“Yes,” Darcy said. “I just said Brock’s words.”  Darcy could see over Rumlow’s shoulder that Jack looked horrified. But Darcy didn’t feel any different. Maybe you had to genuinely mean your words?

“Take Ward back to Pierce, I need to decide our next move,” Rumlow said, still looking at her. He ran his thumb over her lip and she shivered. He was expressionless, but Darcy’s brain was screaming.

_Mistake! Mistake!_

“Brock--” Jack said.

“Take him now. The longer you leave him here, the more I’ll be tempted to shoot him in the head multiple times and then Pierce will think I’m personally invested. Can’t have that,” he said.

“You can’t be personally invested about the guy who broke into your house?” Darcy said. _Whoops. Didn’t mean that to sound so abrupt._

“Not about you, I can’t be,” he said. “Not in public. Go upstairs, pack everything you want to take with you, I need to move you now.”

“That’s how you talk to me?” she said, a little miffed at his tone. It was all Commander-y. He was Jack’s commanding officer, apparently. “I’m not Jack,” she said. “I don’t take orders.” He laughed. It was an on-edge tone. But Darcy wanted to test the bond on his side with Jack present.

“Of course not,” he said. “Please go pack, little murder kitten.”

 Darcy was walking up the stairs when she heard him thank Jack for disarming Ward. “I didn’t,” Jack said quietly. “She’d hit him with a chair when I got here.” She heard Brock’s chuckle.

“She didn’t try to run or hit you, either?” Brock asked.

“No,” Jack said quietly. “She’d recognized Ward from the base and I told her I worked with you. Do you want the keys to my place?”

“No, that’s the first place Garrett will look next,” Brock said.

“Oh,” Jack said, flummoxed. He’d hoped Brock would take Darcy to his HYDRA safe house and they could stage an escape ASAP.

“I appreciate the offer--” Brock said, as if he was struggling with politeness. “I’m going to call Pierce. Can you help Darcy if she needs help?”

“Yeah,” Jack said. He moved quickly upstairs.

 

“Cameras are still out,” Darcy said quietly to the Australian. She’d turned on music. “Not sure about pests,” she said winking.

“Pests?” Jack said.

“Bugs,” she mouthed silently; he nodded. They packed quietly. Jack wrote her a note on the board, then erased quickly when she nodded: _Offered my safe house, he declined, is taking you somewhere else. Will try to stage escape. Phone number is 555-1345._

“Thanks for your help with the packing,” she said.

  


***

 

Watching Jack leave in the cop car was the most difficult thing Darcy had ever done. She wanted to chase the car. She stood in the garage while Brock loaded up their bags. “I’m offended you liked him instantly, but it took weeks to warm up to me,” he said dryly. “I am your soulmate, princess.” His expression was unreadable behind aviator sunglasses.

“He asked how I was, said he was here to save me, different circumstances,” she told him dryly. “Also, his face is much more trustworthy than yours.”

“Jack’s face? Jack’s face is more trustworthy than mine?” he said, stopping on his way back into the house to pin her a little against the SUV. “That is inaccurate. Now you’re just being mean, again. Unfair,” he said.

“I never said I was going to be a nice soulmate,” she sassed back.

“No,” he said. “Bite me again?” He turned his head to the side.

“Seriously? Now? We’re _bonded_ ,” she said.

“I like it,” he said. “You haven’t bitten me in days.”

“You are bizarre,” she told him, shaking her head. But if this was an obedience test, she wanted to pass, so he’d think they were really bonded. She bit him on the front of his trapezius muscle, near where his shoulder met his neck. Possibly more gently than before. It was a little more difficult to put her teeth in and lean up while they were both standing. Not that he was that much taller than her.

“Mmmm,” he said quietly. “I missed that.” Darcy drew away and shook her head.

“You’re not supposed to like me inflicting pain on you, it’s not a good thing,” she said.

“It doesn’t really hurt me. HYDRA serums. I have a high pain threshold now, so those are more like love bites,” he said.

“It felt like I was giving you hickeys?” she said, appalled.

“What, you weren’t trying to romance me? C’mon,” he said. “I could tell. It’s a sign of your attraction to me that even your attempts at violence are so erotic.”

“Excuse me?” she said.

“You have to get drunk to hit me, you bite me out of frustration because you want to say my words, and your most successful attempt was probably when you tried erotic asphyxiation, princess,” he said. “By contrast, you got Ward on a first attempt--but you didn’t hit Jack, who is my favorite coworker--and then you said my words when I was in distress. You instinctively comforted me.”

“Wha--?” Darcy said.

“Just let that sink in,” he said. She was still trying to make words when he went back in for more bags. “Was it necessary to pack all of the Pop Tarts?” he said. “I can buy more.”

“Do you want me to have sufficient sugar in my system to bite you?” she asked archly.

“You would withhold affection from me?” he asked.

“I will neither confirm nor deny. Besides, several of those are limited edition,” she told him. She went to sit in the back of the car, like before.

“No, come sit next to me,” he said.

“No zip ties?” she said.

“Never again,” he said. “Unless--”

“Unless what?” she said.

“I would restrain you in a medical emergency where you were having a seizure or convulsions,” he said.

“That better not fucking happen,” she told him, buckling her seatbelt.

“It won’t,” he said. “Soon, I’ll be able to get you back to Jane.” Darcy looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “The plan was always to re-integrate you at SHIELD once we bonded. Then we can be like a normal couple, you’ll be happier, it’ll all be fine,” he said.

“Someone broke into your safe house to kill me today,” she pointed out.

“I can handle Garrett,” he said. “But I’d like you closer to Jane because proximity to Thor keeps you safe, too.”

 _Yeah, right,_ Darcy thought. _You want her research. I’ll give you some research, fuckface._

 

He was pulling the car out of the driveway when he looked at her curiously. “Is this a trick to crash the car?” he asked. “Try to escape again?”

“Please, I’m not so stupid that I would, like, grab the steering wheel to crash a car and potentially kill myself,” Darcy said.

“No,” he said. “Your plans are usually clever. You just have no upper body strength.”

“I got Ward,” she said.

“Yeah you did,” he said. He sounded proud.

“I would just get out of the car at a red light and run, anyway,” Darcy said. “Much safer.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “Please don’t. I don’t want to play in traffic.”

“Awww, really?” Darcy said. “That’s a letdown.” He hit the child safety locks. “You’re no fun,” she said. “You don’t even laugh at my jokes. Jack thinks I’m funny.”

“How’s that?” he said.

“I’m sure he does,” Darcy said. “What lucky person has him as a soulmate? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a soulmate who could reach those really high kitchen cabinets? What do you think?”

“I think you treated me nicer when you didn’t talk, princess,” he said dryly. "Did you want Starbucks? There's a drive-thru one on the way? About twenty minutes ahead." Darcy didn't reply. They drove for a few minutes in silence.

"Caramel macchiato," she said. "But real milk, none of that soy stuff."


	6. Mr. Rollins Regrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We're all mad here." -unofficial HYDRA motto, probably

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing! Thanks for your comments and kudos! Y'all are fantastic!

Jack delivered Ward to Pierce. He felt a tiny qualm of conscience, but he’d heard Ward bragging about how his survivalist training culminated in shooting a dog called Buddy to the weirdo HYDRA Prep graduates once to prove that he was just as good a double agent, so the qualm was relatively brief. Jack liked dogs. He didn’t like Ward. Sometimes, it came down to that when you had to watch these monsters die. He had no idea how Pierce would punish Ward. Jack just hoped that he could get out of this nightmare before he started to get that strange, checked out look Rumlow got sometimes, like he’d left his body. _Get the list, help Darcy,_ Jack thought. Those were his jobs. He would do his job. He couldn’t save Ward if Pierce wanted him dead. Ward had probably died when he shot that poor dog.

 

“I don’t know quite what to do with Agent Ward, Agent Rollins,” Pierce said to him, holding his reading glasses to his lip. “What would you do?” They were looking at Ward through a two-way glass. Ward was still unconscious and cuffed to a chair in the interrogation room.

“I’m not certain, sir. First, find out who sent him,” Jack said, stalling. Rumlow usually ran these weird back and forths with Pierce and Jack tried to fade into the walls. Jack felt like he could step on a landmine somehow, if he said the wrong thing. Rumlow always told him--Brock was his official HYDRA mentor of record--that the most important thing to Pierce was professional dispassion and judgement: be calm, make your case, never, ever lose your temper or show emotion. But somehow, Jack found Pierce’s academic mien more terrifying than the mad rantings of some of the other HYDRA people. It made Pierce less predictable. When he got nervous, Jack’s accent resurfaced.

“Doubtless, it was Agent Garrett,” Pierce said, sighing. “Agent Garrett is a challenge, Agent Rollins. I had hoped that with his drive to succeed, he would make an exemplary agent, but he is far too emotional. What do you think his problem is?”

“Uh--” Jack said. _Whinging on,_ his brain supplied. “Self-pity, sir?”

“Exactly,” Pierce said. “That is the appropriate word. I have probably failed Agent Ward by not removing him from Garrett’s influence sooner. You are much luckier in your mentorship, Agent Rollins.”

“Yes,” Jack said. “Agent Rumlow is very...unemotional.”

“It is a skill he has learned, Agent Rollins. You, too, can learn to be as professional an agent as Agent Rumlow. Model yourself after him. Do not take things personally,” Pierce said.

“I won’t, sir,” Jack said.

“Today, for example, he trusted in your professionalism enough to let you retrieve Agent Ward,” Pierce said. “Someone who envisions their work as too personal would carry grudges like Garrett or perhaps gone running to the house themselves because a soulmate was involved. But he gave you an opportunity and stayed focused on his meeting. That is the calibre of HYDRA agent we’re trying to create. A new kind of HYDRA.”

“A new kind?” Jack said. “Sir?”

“Yes,” he said. “Free of occultism and emotionalism and the trappings of the World War II era. Focused, efficient, professional. We’re remaking the world here, Agent Rollins. We cannot have people who indulge in personal vexations, not in the very elite. This is why Agent Garrett finds himself marginalized and then drags Agent Ward into these disruptions of order and routine.”

“Oh,” Jack said. He knew that Pierce ran the most elite, polished, and well-oiled branch of HYDRA. Pierce had cultivated relationships with the military embeds like Hale who were sympathetic to his technocratic, results-oriented vision. He was gradually pushing aside the HYDRA Prep Academy graduates in importance because Pierce felt they stood out too much and didn’t blend in with most people, with the exception of especially gifted individuals like Hale. Ironically, Jack was inclined to agree. The academy grads were like bloody PG Wodehouse characters gone evil. They stood out like people raised in cults, honestly. Like commune kids or Moonies, they had their own terms, didn’t understand pop culture, and couldn’t do social interactions smoothly. European HYDRA, Brock had told him once in a bar, was a backwater of Nazi sympathizers: “All third-generation Adolfs from Bavaria with no chins, Jack. They’d fall apart in months without us.” Jack had guessed Brock was drunk at the time--he was seldom that openly critical of HYDRA--but other than von Strucker’s base, there was no alternate seat of power to threaten Pierce.

 

Ward was still slumped in the chair. Pierce tapped his glasses against his mouth. There was a long moment of awkward tension. Jack felt like he ought to break it. “How would you recommend that I learn to be more, uh, detached, sir?” he asked.

“Has Agent Rumlow mentioned the unfortunate matter of his first soulmate?” Pierce said. It seemed like an abrupt shift of topic to Jack.

“No, sir,” Jack said.

“It is perhaps wise. I consider the private life to be private. I’m a traditional man in that regard. Still, I do not think he would mind me telling you. It is a significant lesson. His soulmate was a childhood friend. The little girl was his neighbor, that sort of thing. She was killed in the Flight 644 bombing when they were, oh, eleven or twelve. Too young to have formed a romance, of course, but an attachment was present. When you’re young, you are perhaps overly prone to attachments, so complete is your innocence. Agent Rumlow is a New Yorker as well."

"Yes," Jack supplied reflexively, when Pierce paused. He was still processing the first soulmate thing.  _A child killed in a bombing._

"At a certain point, he hit a plateau in his personal capabilities at SHIELD. He was near retirement and yet, _things had not_ _improved_ , you see. He came to me. He wanted to do more than he could accomplish as one man to help stem the tide of violence in the world. Being a SHIELD agent didn’t seem useful enough to someone with his history. Everyday, people in the world were experiencing the loss of their soulmates, their 9/11s. You see, unlike Agent Garrett, he didn’t wallow in self-pity. He wanted to help. I’m always looking for the helpers, Agent Rollins,” Pierce said. He chuckled. “Mr. Rogers was correct in that regard. Those who want to see our twin goals of order and peace to spare other people their misfortunes are usually the most driven, the most dedicated. The typical diplomatic and military approaches start to seem...inadequate. So many terrorists slip through. I brought him into HYDRA and the serum trials to slow his aging. That alone has an 85% casualty rate. He survived. I tasked him with the most difficult terrorist missions, he survived. I made sure he was promoted to STRIKE Alpha, then in charge of your team, he survived. He moves forward.”

“Forward,” Jack said flatly.

  
“You have to be forward-looking, Agent Rollins. Let the past go. I also taught Agent Rumlow how to put aside any hesitations he might have about methodology. Everyone worth their salt hesitates about methodology at first; the ones who don't hesitate to commit violence are far too unstable, really.”

“Oh,” Jack said.

“Don’t fear your hesitation, Agent Rollins, learn to master it. You need resolve and remove, not a gleeful dedication to violence or an attachment to the claims of the ego,” Pierce said.

“Yes, sir,” Jack said, feeling a bead of sweat in his lower back. _This man is more frightening because he is so calm._

“I know that Agent Garrett feels threatened by Agent Rumlow, but it cannot be helped. When he was tested, Agent Rumlow’s dedication to the agency became the subject of gossip. I assume that Garrett believed I was practicing favoritism. But I was very glad Agent Rumlow responded as he did to the news--it would have distressed me to shoot him, really. I was very proud of my steadying influence as a mentor,” Pierce said.

“News?” Jack said, utterly lost.

“Oh, I’ve omitted the most crucial detail. You’ll have to forgive me. I kept it from him for as long as possible, too. You see, I had to tell Agent Rumlow that the Flight 644 bombing was one of our Chaos and Discord operations. That was one of my first programs within HYDRA. I designed it. We were in a lull at the end of the Cold War, less hostage situations, less crises. Things needed to be shaken up, lest people get too complacent about world security. I never imagined that, years later, I would need to disclose it to an impacted STRIKE Commander. It was my most difficult moment as a mentor and his most shining one as a mentee. No reaction whatsoever. He went straight back to work,” Pierce said. “You are in very safe, reliable hands, Agent Rollins. You could not ask for a better mentor in HYDRA.”

“That’s reassuring, sir,” Jack said.

“Now, shall we kill Agent Ward or give him a second opportunity?” Pierce said.

“Perhaps the most useful approach would be to remove Agent Garrett, sir?” Jack offered, unwilling to murder Ward with his own reply. “After all, if Garrett is the source of the disruption, he may just find another agent to utilize?”

“An excellent point, Agent Rollins. Very logical. The difficulty will be in eliminating Garrett, since he has some friends I would not like to offend,” Pierce said.

“Transfer to a backwater, sir?” Jack said quietly. “That’s what the Ottomans did.”

“Hmm. You are a student of history, Agent Rollins? I’m very glad. Not enough people take their history seriously.”

 

Once Pierce let him leave, Jack went out to his car and had a minor panic attack. He’d assumed Darcy would be somewhat safer with Brock because they were soulmates. People were supposed to form attachments with their soulmates. Yet, Pierce had just told him that HYDRA had killed Brock’s childhood soulmate and he’d not batted an eyelash at the news. Just how much danger was Darcy in?

 

***

“Brock Rumlow, why are you the way that you are?” Darcy asked, as she looked around her second HYDRA safe house. It was a suburban tract house in Maryland. A little shabby, inconspicuous. Mauve wallpaper that Darcy thought dated to her childhood. Almond kitchen appliances. Brass fixtures. Total 1980s house. He’d vetoed her second request for a weapon. Darcy tapped her feet on the floor and he glanced over, evidently irritated.

“I’m not giving you a gun so you can shoot me in the back,” he said dryly.

“Please, I’d always shoot you in the front, honey,” she said. They’d been bickering since they got there. The bickering had actually started in the car, when she knew he wouldn’t pull over to disrupt their ETA and seized the opportunity to bug him. Not electronically, just emotionally. “I don’t want to eat this MRE stuff and my Pop Tarts are in the car.  Why won’t you let me get them?” she asked.

“Because you’re not going to the car alone,” he said.

“Why won’t you go, then?” she said.

“Because I’m trying to make sure no one has been here and all the windows and doors are secure, which ranks above Pop Tarts in the hierarchy of needs,” he said.

“I thought Maslow listed food then shelter,” Darcy said. “I’m starving.”

“Drink your praline latte,” he said.

“I finished it already,” she said.

“You were more afraid of me before we bonded,” he said, checking a window.

“Haha, backfired on you, didn’t it?” Darcy said. Being stupidly obnoxious kept her calm. She was nervous about counterfeiting affection towards him and where that might lead, so she went with annoyance and pouting and bickering and planning to rebuff any overtures he might make by saying she had a headache or wasn’t in the mood. It was The Real Girlfriend Experience.

“I don’t know why I imagined being in hiding with my soulmate would be romantic,” he said.

“If you get me Pop Tarts, I will split a strawberry milkshake one with you?” she offered.

“I’m not five,” he said, locking a final window and dusting off his hands. The mini blinds were dusty.

“No. You’re like fifty-five. Doesn’t that make you wonder?” Darcy said.

“Wonder what?” he said. “I’m not that old. Not yet.”

“Why we’re a match. How old are you?” she said.

“I know why we’re a match,” he said.

“Sure you do,” Darcy said.

“What are you doing now?” he asked when she stood up.

“I’m going upstairs. There’s no rule that soulmates have to stay in the same room,” she said.

 

***

 

Upstairs had that pale blue carpet that Darcy remembered from childhood, too. One of her earliest houses had been in these colors. Mauve and blue with brass. She half-wondered if she’d open a door and find her childhood bedroom: Little Mermaid sheets on a twin bed, a corner hammock for her beloved stuffed animals, a pink tulle bassinet for dolls on the floor, wooden toy box with roses stenciled on the side, and Barbie’s Malibu Dream House in the corner.

 

She pushed open the nearest door. The room was empty, except for a twin mattress still in its clear plastic packaging on a box spring and a brass lamp sitting on the floor. There were half-Venetian blinds on the window. _Well, that’s a letdown,_ she thought. She lay down on the plastic and went to sleep anyway. When she woke up, it had gotten dark outside. There was a box of Pop-Tarts next to her. Darcy sat up. The bastard better not have locked her---wait, the bedroom door was still half-open. She plopped back in relief and looked again at the Pop-Tarts box. “What kind of person brings you unfrosted strawberry?” she said out loud. “Nobody wants unfrosted when I also have frosted.” She shook her head. She would have to go downstairs now.

 

She might have thought it was a way to get her to talk to him, except he was asleep in the other bedroom. Snoring. She crept quietly downstairs, hoping he’d brought the whole bag, not just this sad box.

 

“Yes, score!” she said, finding the bag on the counter, next to an ancient toaster. “We’re gonna keep the big light off and pray you’ve been cleaned since Reagan was president,” she told it. Darcy was waiting for her frosted cherry unicorn Pop-Tarts in the dim light from the upstairs hallway when there was a popping sound. She crashed to the floor just in time; the spray of bullets from the direction of the little street-facing window over the sink just missed her. “Oof,” she said to herself.

“Darcy?” Brock called.

“I’m okay, but I think someone assassinated the kitchen cabinet,” she said numbly. It hadn’t been her quick reflexes that saved her, but the accident of being startled and slipping in her sock feet on the linoleum. If she hadn’t left her shoes upstairs, she’d be dead. Seconds later, the house was blanketed in darkness.

“Stay down,” he called. “I turned off the fuses at the upstairs box.”

“Uh-huh,” she said. She could hear him muttering to himself.

“Shit. Fuck. Fuck. Fucking Garrett,” he said. “Shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't you imagine that there are competing HYDRA factions and people engaged in constant power struggles, like European royal politics in the 18th century or something?
> 
> Chapter title inspiration: Cole Porter's supremely unnerving song, "Miss Otis Regrets." It's always freaked me out. It's *supposedly* just about a rich (presumably white) lady murderess, but I always feel like Porter was (maybe?) writing about racial violence/lynchings in code, because it's sympathetic to her and treats her as a victim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX-b1Ksetcc


	7. Wheeeeeeeeee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of course Darcy loves Real Genius, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing! Thanks for all your lovely comments! Y'all are great!

A few minutes later, she heard the door bang open and the sound of Brock dragging something heavy inside. “Who sent you?” he barked. Darcy--careful of the broken window glass in the kitchen--crept into the room. “Sonofabitch,” Brock muttered, shining his flashlight. The man on the floor was foaming at the mouth.

“Hail HYDRA,” he choked out.

“I hate when they do that,” Brock said bitterly.

“What is happening?” Darcy said.

“He swallowed cyanide after I shot him,” Brock said. There was a trail of blood across the parquet near the door. She just hadn’t noticed it until Brock moved the light.

“You shot him?” she repeated.

“Just a few times. Nowhere fatal,” Brock said. “Dammit. Where is Garrett, you halfwit? I don’t even know if it is Garrett, which is worse.”

“Why?” Darcy said quietly.

“If it’s not Garrett, it’s Pierce. Pierce could actually kill us. Get your Pop Tarts, I’m getting you out of this shit,” he said bluntly.

 

Thirty minutes later, he’d gotten a different car--she didn’t ask--and was barking coordinates into a gas station burner phone. He’d activated it under a fake name as they drove down the interstate: _John Rodriguez._ John Rodriguez was apparently kinda grumpy, based on what Brock was saying to the person on the other end. “All right, all right, yes, I know it’s a fucking breach of protocol, I just need you to take her--I can’t think, okay? It can’t be helped. I can’t think when she’s around,” he said. Darcy was terrified. He was dumping her in a prison someplace. What if she jumped out of the car? She was edging for the handle when he hung up. “Fuck everything,” he muttered. “You’ll be all right, though, okay? You’re going someplace safe, princess.” He rubbed her knee.

“You can’t think when I’m around?” Darcy asked.

“No,” he said. “I’m emotionally compromised.” He sighed, like it was her fault.

“It’s not like I _asked_ for this,” Darcy said, feeling petulant. All of a sudden, he veered off at an exit. “What are you doing?” she said.

“We’re meeting him here, in the field next to that Home Depot,” Brock said, as they rounded the exit ramp and could see the small shopping center just off the highway. They drove past the home improvement store. He made an abrupt turn off the street and drove through the lawn of a Lutheran Church.

“What are you doing? That was decorative,” she said, as he narrowly missed some pumpkins on bails of hay in front of the church, then swung the car around the back of the building.

“Now we wait,” he said grimly. To her surprise, he reached over and took her hand. “You’re going to be okay.” She didn’t think he said it for her.

 

The quinjet landed five minutes later. They got out of the car. Darcy couldn’t breathe. The ramp came down slowly and the person at the edge turned. “Agent Rumlow, Miss Lewis,” he said.

“I thought you were dead,” Darcy said, mouth open.

“Reports of my death were greatly exaggerated,” Phil Coulson said.

"Steve was so sad," Darcy told him.

"Really?" Phil said, perking up.

"Uh-huh," Brock said dryly. "Just heartbroken."

"You're making fun of me, but I don't care," Phil said. He turned to Brock. “You have the list?” he said.

“Yeah,” he said, handing him a flash drive. “All the agents and moles, but no comprehensive list of bases yet. I think I can still get it, if this is Garrett and not Pierce. All bets are off--”

“I understand,” Phil said, looking slightly at Darcy.

“What’s going on?” Darcy said.

“He’s giving me a list of everyone who is HYDRA,” Phil said.

“Jack’s list?” she said.

“What?” Brock said.

“Jack is Fury and Hill’s undercover agent,” Darcy explained. She knew Agent iPod Thief wasn’t HYDRA. He got heart eyes whenever he talked about Steve. No fan of Cap was a traitor. Which meant--which meant--her brain couldn’t process all of it at once. She shifted her focus away from Phil and stared at Brock.

“Well, that is good news,” Phil said. “You have a real work friend now.”

“Jesus,” Brock muttered, looking relieved.

“What?” Phil said.

“I didn’t want to shoot him,” he said.

“He’s Australian,” Darcy supplied, finally finding her words. “If you name something Australian, he’ll know I told you. Probably.”

“Something Australian?” Brock said.

“A dingo stole my baby might be a bit obvious, make it something you could work into conversation,” Phil said.

“Try _no worries_ ,” Darcy whispered. Brock looked at her intently, his expression unreadable.

“That’s a good idea--” Phil began.

“Give us a minute?” Brock said, handing Phil her bags.

“All right,” Phil said, walking back up the ramp. “Don’t take too long.”

“I thought--” she said.

“It’s all right, I wouldn’t trust me, either.” He grinned. “I’ll find a way to forgive you for thinking I’m a Nazi if I make it out alive.”

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

He looked away, sighed. “Back when I thought Pierce was a good guy, he invited me into what he called a ‘special anti-terrorist program.’ My first soulmate--we grew up together--was killed in a plane bombing. They don’t come out and tell you they’re HYDRA at first. I thought i was doing stuff that was sort of a grey op, legally, but fighting terrorism. They hook you slowly. It’s a process. Pierce had recruited me into SHIELD--I thought he was like my second father. I trusted him,” Brock said, grinding his jaw. “Plus, they get kompromat on you, like the Russians, find all your weaknesses, your family, anything they can threaten you with.”

“Oh,” she said.

“You think your soulmate would be a Nazi? You? Miss Unicorn Pop Tart?” he said.

“I am a murder kitten,” she said. She didn’t know quite why she did it, but she hugged him.

“I gotta go,” he said softly. She leaned against him a little.

“Yeah,” she said. Then she bit him. He laughed.

“I’ll be back,” he told her.

  


***

 

“I can’t believe you’re alive--and he’s okay,” Darcy said that night on the Bus. She’d met everyone, shared her Pop Tarts, cried a little about Brock and her topsy-turvy soulmate sitch, and borrowed some pajamas from Jemma. To her great joy, she was meeting Jane and Thor at an undisclosed location. But first, she was hanging out with Agent iPod Thief. Phil looked up from where he was doing paperwork. She was feeling a little guilty that she hadn’t read her Pop Tarts as a sign of Brock's good intentions.

“Well, he is insane, technically, but he’s not a Nazi,” he told Darcy.

“That’s reassuring,” Darcy said. “Very comforting, Phil.” He looked at her for a moment.

“Darcy, you’re an adult woman wearing a unicorn onesie you borrowed from Simmons,” he said.

“What’s that mean?” she said.

“I also think you’re insane,” he said dryly.

“Oh. Can I play with Lola?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

“Please?”

“No.”

“Pretty please?”

“No.”

“I’ll be really good, wherever you’re taking me?” she vowed.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“No.”

“Whyyyyyyyyy?”

“No.”

“You’re mean,” she pouted.

“Call me mean again, I’ll leave you at a Turkish prison.”

“Brock would be very upset with you,” Darcy said. A funny expression crossed Phil’s face. Darcy realized she had a get out of jail free card now and cackled. “I’ll say hi to Lola for you!” she said, bouncing up and down.

“Oh, God,” Phil muttered under his breath. He looked at his paperwork and sighed. They were transferring Ward to him. “What do I do about Ward?” he said out loud.

“Have Thor hit him with Mew-Mew!” Darcy called from the hallway.

“That’s not a bad idea,” Phil muttered.

“Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” Darcy shrieked. There was a _thump_.

“What are you doing?” Phil said, removing his reading glasses. There was an even louder crash.

“Ow--ow, I was sliding in my onesie! I’m okay, I just miscalculated the hallway angle!” Darcy called.

“Do not slide into Lola!” Phil said sternly. Darcy’s head popped back into the office.

“Okey-dokey, I’ll just go ask FitzSimmons if they can do that ice hallway trick from _Real Genius_. If Brock calls, tell him I love him!” she said, disappearing again.

“I’m not doing that,” Phil muttered. He shook his head. “Two hours ago, you thought he was a Nazi!” he yelled.

“Yes, but have you seen him without a shirt? Only my exceptionally firm principles kept me from swooning when I thought he was a very bad boy,” Darcy called back, sliding a few feet and running into the wall with a _thunk_.

“Please never say _very bad boy_ that way again.”

“No promises!” Darcy said.

“What did I do to deserve this?” Phil said, looking at the ceiling in dismay.

“I think his principles are really firm, too, but I haven’t felt them yet!” Darcy yelled. “In case you were curious!”

  



	8. A Dingo Stole My Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief stopover in Cleveland before we depart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I own nothing! Thanks for your comments and kudos!

 

Brock found Jack at the coffeemaker at Triskelion. “Did you hear that Foster and Thor went to a conference?” Brock asked.

“I hadn’t,” Jack said, swallowing.

“No worries, I’ll keep you informed,” he said quietly. Then he winked. Jack stared for a second, then recollected himself. He shut his jaw with a snap. They walked to the SHIELD gym in silence.

“I--” Jack said. He didn’t know what to say.

“You ever see that Meryl Streep movie, the dingo ate my baby one?” Brock said.

“Huh?” Jack said.

“Australian. Australia’s a weird fucking place, man. They thought that woman killed her baby, turns out she was innocent the whole time,” Brock said. “Ain’t that something? She was innocent this whole time, everyone thought she was a bad guy?”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “I remember hoping she was innocent.”

“Sure, sure,” Brock said. “But what did anybody ever do about the dingos? That’s what I want to fucking know.”

“That’s a question,” Jack said.

“Uh-huh,” Brock said. In the gym, Jack found a note in his boxing gloves. It was an address, a time, and the words _bring the Widow and the Captain_ in Italian. Brock’s handwriting.

  


***

“Do you have a soulmate?” the little girl in the Barnes & Noble asked Darcy.

“Yup,” Darcy said. She was browsing the adult coloring books up near the front. She had been traveling with Phil on the Bus for several weeks and she, Jane, and Simmons had finally prevailed upon him to stop in the nearest Kansas town with a Starbucks-adjacent bookstore. Thor was off doing anti-HYDRA stuff with the other boys. It was a boys plus Natasha thing, apparently Darcy was okay with that; she didn’t mind saving herself, but Brock was right, she was more flight than fight.

“Is he cute?” the little girl asked.

“Sooooo cute,” Darcy said. The little girl looked skeptical.

“When you first met him, did you want to smoosh your face with his face? My brother says soulmates kiss,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

“Nooooo,” Darcy said. “Not at first. But some soulmates are platonic and you’re just buddies. See that crazy-looking girl in the science section?” Jane was rumpled from sciencing with FitzSimmons. The little girl nodded. “She’s almost like a platonic soulmate.”

“No kissing,” the little girl said.

“Nope,” Darcy said. “I have to remind her to brush her teeth too much.” That made the little girl giggle. She laughed so hard she actually lay down on the floor and shrieked. Shoppers started to stare.

“What are you doing?” Jane asked, coming over to them in concern. “We’re supposed to be low-key.”

“Low-key. Loki,” Darcy said, giggling more.

“Did you tickle that child?” Jane asked.

“No!” they both said, laughing.

“I’ve told you it’s rude to touch people,” Jane scolded. Her phone buzzed and she looked at the text. “That’s Phil. He’s waiting. Time to check out,” she said. “You have your coloring books?”

“Yes,” Darcy said, bummed she had to go back to the Bus. She was getting stir-crazy and she missed Brock. This trip had finally been the thing that bonded Jane and Phil. Jane was all teacher’s pet now. It was kinda annoying.

 

***

“Dingo stole my baby,” Jack whispered into the electronic door panel outside the warehouse. It had a verbal key code. _Beep._ He tried again. _Beep._

“Perhaps you should try your real voice?” Natasha suggested. She and Steve were standing behind Jack.

“Dingo stole my baby,” Jack said in his natural accent. The door unlocked smoothly. The three of them walked inside. Brock was waiting inside.

“Took you long enough. Three genius tactical experts, huh?” he said.

“I would not have taken me that long,” Natasha said.

“Threw you both under the bus,” Brock said, grinning. “You ready to get all these bases sorted?” They were going to move tonight. In three hours, Pierce would be arrested. Brock had taken care of Garrett himself and delivered him to SuperMax with Ward. He’d decide not to kill him only because he thought it might squick Darcy out to start their real relationship with a murder. Of course, then Darcy had started ending their phone calls with “shoot lots of Nazis!” She was adorable, he thought.

“Where’s Darcy?” Steve asked. He didn’t quite trust Rumlow yet.

“She and Jane are with Phil, hold on,” Brock turned and dialed a number on his phone. It rang once. Twice. “I think it’s Margarita Monday,” Brock explained. “They play loud music.” Then someone picked up. Steve could hear Bob Marley and the Wailers.

“Boooo-booo!” Darcy yelled, “I miss you!”

“Hey, baby,” he said. “I got company. Cap wants proof you’re alive and well?”

“Stevie!” Darcy yelled. “We’re very drunk here, but not as drunk as the night I pinched your ass and introduced you to Senator Brown as “America the Booty-ful.”

“Hi, Darcy,” Steve said, shaking his head. “How’d you end up soulmates with Rumlow, huh?”

“I’m a little murder kitten!” she yelled.

“She tried to strangle him with shoelaces,” Jane said in the background.

“She did,” Brock said proudly. “That’s my girl.”

“Have you seen Thor yet?” she asked. “He left a few minutes ago.”

“We’re waiting on him, but I gotta go, princess. You enjoy your margaritas with Jane,” he said.

“Bye, everyone!” Darcy said. “Please be safe!”

“Bye,” Steve and Natasha said at once. Jack chimed in at the end.

“Tell Phil I said to be nice,” Brock said.

“Of course. He’s scared of making you mad, it’s the best,” she said. Brock chuckled. “Love you, shoot lots of Nazis,” Darcy told him.

“Will do,” he said.

 

When they’d hung up, Natasha grinned.“What?” Jack said to her.

“I am romantic,” Natasha said, “it is sweet that they have found each other.” There was a crack of lightning, some thunder, and a thump above them.

“Incoming Asgardian,” Brock said wryly.

“He can’t be subtle,” Steve said.

“I did ask,” Brock said. “I think that is subtle. For him.” They heard a loud voice.

“Dingo stole my baby!” Thor shouted. His Australian accent was surprisingly natural.

“Your password’s compromised,” Steve said dryly. “I think dingos heard it.”

“I’ll change it,” Brock said.

“What to?” Steve said.

“Jack, you got ideas?” Brock asked.

“She’ll be apples,” he said.

“She’ll be apples?” Steve asked.

“It means it will be okay,” Jack explained.

“I think that’s a good choice,” a voice said. Nick Fury emerged from the backroom. “So, Cap, are you ready to defeat HYDRA again?”

Then Thor ambled into the room, grinning. “Greetings, my friends! It is a delight to see you all!”

“Here we go,” Brock said, chuckling.

“Let’s talk about our tactical plan,” Steve said, shifting into his Work Captain America voice.

  


Across town, Bucky Barnes had been freed from cryo and was replacing Pierce’s cyanide pills with placebos. Then he would wait for a ride.

  


***

 

“When?” Darcy asked Phil. She’d left Jane drinking margaritas with the FitzSimmons to bug Phil about going home. She was a teensy bit wasted.

“Not yet,” he said.

“But whennnnnnnnnn?” she asked. “I miss him bunches.”

“You thought he had kidnapped you and was holding you prisoner,” Phil said dryly.

“But I loooooooove him,” she said.

“That’s Stockholm Syndrome,” Phil said.

“I don’t have that,” Darcy said.

“Sure.”

“Whennnnnnnn?”

“Not yet. We have somebody to pick up,” Phil said.

“Oh,” Darcy said.

“Then another trip to make,” Phil said.

“Are we going to Barnes & Noble again? Can I get a mocha?” she said.

“No,” Phil said.

“I’m going to tell him you were mean,” she said.

“Please, you love me,” he said.

“I do love you, I just don’t know why you and Jane are such funsuckers,” Darcy complained.

“We are not, we’re just keeping you safe,” Phil said.

“Yes, you are.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Are we landing? Why are we landing?” she asked.

“Come with me,” Phil said, standing up.

“Where we going?” Darcy said.

“To meet Cap’s best friend,” Phil said.

“Sam’s here?” Darcy said, as they walked towards the ramp. Phil looked at her skeptically.

“He’s not Cap’s best friend,” Phil said. He looked all pleased and star-struck.

“You tell Sam that,” Darcy said, as the ramp lowered.

“This is a big day for me, don’t do anything embarrassing, he needs careful handling,” Phil said. A man with a metal arm was standing, nervously, in the grass in the dark. He looked up at them.

“Hello. Mr. Coulson?”

“Sgt. Barnes,” Phil said seriously, “it’s an honor to meet a Howling Commando.”

“Oh. _Oh,_ ” Darcy said. He looked at her.

“Ma’am,” he said politely.

“Hello, Sarge,” Darcy said, a wicked, margarita-influenced gleam in her eye. “Did they call y’all the Howling Commandos because that’s the sound the girls made when you walked by?”

“Darcy,” Phil said, sighing. “Please go play with Jane.”

“Nope,” Darcy said, as Bucky ascended the ramp. At the top, Bucky winked at her.

“Sgt. Barnes, we’re heading immediately to Cleveland to retrieve those materials, then taking you Helen Cho and a team of specialists from Wakanda. I’ve coordinated it all myself. You’ll be able to rejoin Captain Rogers as soon as possible,” Phil said. He looked serious.

“Cleveland?” Darcy said.

“Stop talking,” Phil told her. She stuck out her tongue. “If you’ll come with me, sir?” Phil said to the other man, ignoring Darcy.

Bucky grinned at her as he followed Phil. “There was some whistling, doll,” he said quietly.

“I bet there was,” Darcy said.

 

***

 

Watching it on the news from the Bus, Darcy was sure that Alexander Pierce was having a bad day. For him, the worst part of having the Avengers and loyal STRIKE agents quash your HYDRA uprising was probably the part where Steve marched him out of the Triskelion in handcuffs in front of the news media. In concert with international authorities, the HYDRA bases had been raided. The FBI had helped round up all the HYDRA moles within SHIELD--thankfully, less than first imagined. There were going to be trials. Probably Congressional hearings. But everything had been so flawlessly executed--Phil was super good at logistics, especially when he wanted to impress Captain America--that there hadn’t been a single casualty amongst the loyal agents in DC, just a few injuries. The Project Impact helicarriers were presently being dismantled and turned into Medivac carriers for getting people out of the strike zones for overseas HYDRA bases. Those people had had time to run, but according to Phil, there was just one guy who was a substantial threat.

“One guy?” Darcy asked Phil. Jane was sitting next to her.

“There’s Thor!” Jane said, grinning. “He just scolded that Nazi for trying to kick him.” The cameras had picked up Thor wagging a finger in his face.

“One guy in a monocle,” Phil said, smiling at the TV.  He was feeling very proud.

“Like Mr. Peanut?” Darcy asked him.

“Exactly like Mr. Peanut,” Phil said.

“Nazi Mr. Peanut,” Jane said. “I think I could take him.”

“You probably could,” Phil said. “I’ve read the Loki reports.”

 

***

 

When the quinjet landed at the Triskelion, Bucky looked nervous. “You think the Punk will be happy to see me?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” Darcy said.

“Yeah, for sure,” Jane said. She grinned at Darcy. Jane had an elaborate theory that Steve and Bucky had been a stealth couple back in the day; she’d written undergraduate essays about it.

 

Brock was waiting when Darcy had Bucky bridal-carry her off the quinjet behind an embarrassed-looking Phil. “This is a workplace,” Phil said. “Why are you wearing that unicorn onesie?”

“I want Brock to see it,” Darcy said.

“It’s barely a workplace,” Jane said. “It was full of Nazis the day before yesterday.”

“Darling!” Darcy called to Brock. He turned, then frowned at her in Bucky’s arms. “I’ve met an older gentleman! He knows how to treat a girl! We might go dancing.” She waved a handkerchief. Brock’s face split into a grin.

“You’re not hurt?” Brock said.

“No, I’m just torn between my soulmate and this wicked charmer. Did you know he can actually dance? With real steps?” Darcy said.

“That’s right, doll,” Bucky said, chuckling.

“Barnes, put down my soulmate,” Brock said. “What is that?”

“You’re as bad as Phil. It’s a good thing I love you,” Darcy said, wiggling down. “I’m a unicorn.”

“Of course you are,” Brock said, kissing her. They started making audible lip smacking sounds and Phil groaned.

“This is so humiliating,” he said. “Oh, God, Captain Rogers is here.” Phil hid his face. Steve had emerged from a doorway thirty feet away.

“Are you actually blushing?” Jane said. “Are you in love with him, too?”

“Who else is in love with him?” Phil asked, confused, over the sound of Darcy and Brock making out enthusiastically a few feet away.

“Me,” Bucky said.

“You--oh,” Phil said. “Congratulations?”

“I think so,” Bucky said.

“Rumlow!” Steve called to Brock, then made a strange sound. He’d realized who it was with them. “Bucky,” Steve said as he got closer, looking slightly breathless. “They told me you were in treatment.”

“He’s good,” Phil said. “I made arrangements.”

“Thank you,” Steve said politely, not breaking eye contact with Bucky. Phil preened.

“Hi, Punk. You been staying out of trouble?” Bucky asked finally.

“Would have been easier with you,” Steve said. Bucky walked towards him.

  


“See?” Jane said, looking at Steve’s emotional face. “They totally want each other. It’s very sexual. Look at Barnes touching his hair and biting his lip.” Darcy and Brock had stopped kissing to gawk.

“Shh,” Darcy said. “Steve can hear you.”

“Duh,” Jane said. “I know.”

“I agree with her,” Brock said. “Totally sexual.”

“Shhhh,” Phil scolded. “Don’t ruin their moment.”

 

-THE END-


End file.
